Fires, shootings, one missing boy:

Sheriff Mike Meehan reflects on his first year in office

Flathead County Sheriff Mike Meehan's first year at the helm of the Flathead's busiest police force has been interesting indeed.

And even when it wasn't exactly interesting, it was still just plain busy.

"It's been a real challenging year," said Meehan, recounting some of the cases to come across his desk.

Major event seemed to follow major event, starting soon after Meehan took office in January.

When 3-year-old Loic Rogers went missing on Jan. 24, Meehan's office led first the three-day search effort and later the criminal investigation after the boy was found drowned in a septic tank.

"It was real trying times, and of course it had a really sad ending," said Meehan, recalling the 20-hour days he and other officers put in while the search was still on.

At one point, Meehan was coordinating 60 law-enforcement officers, hundreds of local volunteers and national agencies to aid in the search. When Loic wasn't found, Meehan launched a criminal investigation.

The owner of the home where Loic drown was sentenced to a one-year deferred prison term and fined $500 after pleading no contest to one count of misdemeanor negligent endangerment.

Two months later, the Sheriff's Office had to deal with criticism after the officer-involved shooting of Rian Ross on March 26.

Deputies responded to Ross' home on Mountain Meadow Road to serve a high-risk warrant after he reportedly had beaten his wife and threatened her with a shotgun the night before.

Deputies backed off that night to avoid a confrontation while Ross was intoxicated and had a gun in his hand. Later, authorities placed three calls to the house. All went unanswered. Believing him to be asleep, the SWAT team entered the house with a key supplied by Ross' wife.

But Ross appeared around a corner, leveling a loaded shotgun at a deputy. The deputy fired, killing Ross after he ignored repeated orders to drop his shotgun. Ross never fired.

The officer was cleared by three separate investigations - a Sheriff's Office internal review, an independent probe conducted by the Kalispell Police Department and a coroner's inquest.

"Officer-involved shootings are always a challenge," said Meehan, adding that department morale did not suffer during the investigations. "The main thing you have to do is let the outside agency do the investigation and cooperate with them any way you can."

While the shooting itself was found to be justified, some people questioned the decision to enter the house at all.

"The fact is that Ross escalated it to the point where deadly force became necessary," said Meehan, recalling that Ross was drunk, had a history of violence and had been out the night before shooting into the air.

The last shooting death involving Flathead County law-enforcement officers took place in November 2006, when Trevor New was killed after pointing a gun at Kalispell police.

Sheriff's deputies have investigated two murders so far this year; Tarisia Caron, 18, was killed on May 1, and Jody Smith, 46, on Dec. 9.

While neither case required investigators to look very far for a suspect, murder cases are always high-profile, said Meehan, who has been a police officer since he was 19.

The man accused of killing Caron, Kenton Weimer, 18, has already pleaded guilty to mitigated deliberate homicide and faces up to 40 years in prison.

The man accused of killing Smith, her husband, Charles Smith, pleaded not guilty on Thursday.

ONE OF the hardest parts of being the sheriff and one of the county's coroners is notifying families after the death of a loved one, said Meehan, recalling the May 12 crash of a skydiving plane near Marion that killed five people.

The plane appears to have taken a 180-degree turn soon after taking off from Skydive Lost Prairie, reaching an altitude of only 500 feet before plummeting to the ground. A final report on the crash has yet to be released by the National Transportation Safety Board.

"It was a real challenge to get to some of their family members and advise them of their loss before they heard about it on the radio," said Meehan. "You're still a law-enforcement officer, but you have to have compassion for people."

Meehan gets a lot of calls in the middle of the night. He is notified about all major crimes, and even a lot of more minor ones, as they occur.

"I'm kind of used to it," said Meehan. "My wife is getting used to it. She's getting to the point where she can sleep right through it because she knows the phone is for me."

Meehan is truly on call 24 hours a day, he said.

"But I was expecting that," he said. "I knew it would be like this before I was elected."

Fire season was one of Meehan's busiest times of the year, he said. During June and July, due to the Brush and Chippy Creek fires, the Sheriff's Office had three areas under different stages of evacuation.

Meehan, who said he worked 18 to 20 hour days during the peak burning season, attended community meetings every night for a month.

"You really get to know the people in those areas because you're talking to them almost every night," said Meehan.

Manpower was stretched as deputies worked roadblocks near the fires.

"It's a big responsibility when you're looking after 200 plus homes in an area, with fire being so unpredictable," said Meehan. "It's critical to keep undesirable people out of those areas. The last thing we want is for someone to get their home burglarized after we asked them to leave."

Meehan, who relocated to the Flathead Valley from Houston in 1983, pointed to several other firsts to occur in his inaugural year in office.

Halfway through the year, Meehan submitted his first budget. That was the first time he felt he was leading the Sheriff's Office in a unique direction, he said.

There were some cuts, but funding was approved to hire four new deputies. Prior to those hires, there were .41 deputies per 1,000 county residents. The accepted national ratio in rural Western counties is 1.3 deputies per 1,000 residents, said Meehan, explaining why adding more deputies was a priority.

"We tried to be as fiscally responsible as possible," he said.

In June, the Flathead County Detention Center launched its work-release program, aimed at reducing overcrowding in the jail. Work-release participants work during the day but return to jail at night. Only non-violent misdemeanants are accepted to the program.

In the coming year, Meehan said he plans to continue to increase manpower and move forward with jail expansion and find alternative ways to handle the county's inmate population.

"I've enjoyed it," said Meehan. "I look forward to moving on. We will continue to provide the best service possible while handling an increasing number of calls every year."

Reporter Nicholas Ledden can be reached at 758-4441 or by e-mail at nledden@dailyinterlake.com