Audio not working at time of west Kalispell shooting

Investigators will not be able to use sound recordings to help verify what happened when officers shot and critically injured a man in west Kalispell on Tuesday.  

“The officers that were involved in the shooting, their audio was not on at the time,” Kalispell Police Department Investigations Capt. Scott Warnell said Thursday.

Two Kalispell Police officers shot and critically wounded Ryan Pengelly, 30, during a confrontation at his home at 145 Looking Glass Ave. in west Kalispell.

According to police, Pengelly aimed a rifle at the officers and he refused to put it down, leading the officers to open fire and hit Pengelly with multiple rounds.

Officers are equipped with devices that take sound recordings, Warnell said, but they have to be activated manually. The dashboard video cameras of the two responding officers also had not been turned on. The systems automatically turn on when a patrol car’s flasher lights are activated, but officers don’t always use flashers during welfare checks.

The names of the two officers involved have not been released.

“We will at some point, we are just working through the investigation,” Warnell said.

The two officers have been placed on paid administrative leave according to the department’s policy regarding officer-involved shootings. The Flathead County Sheriff’s Office is investigating the shooting.

Pengelly is a decorated U.S. Army veteran who served in Afghanistan in Iraq, before a bomb blast left him with a traumatic brain injury. In 2013, he was given the home by the nonprofit Operation Finally Home, an organization that helps provide disabled veterans with mortgage-free housing.

Pengelly worked for Glacier Taxi and was preparing to become an over-the-road truck driver.

Kalispell Police have said the officers went to the home to do a mental-health check on Bonnie Pengelly, Ryan’s mother.

“Officers received information that the female had made comments of being suicidal and homicidal,” police said in a news release Wednesday. “She had stated that her son had multiple weapons in the house and she had access to them.”

However, Bonnie Pengelly told the Inter Lake on Thursday that she was neither suicidal or homicidal, but she has been in treatment for depression.

Police said that when they tried to take Bonnie Pengelly into custody, she resisted arrest.

While officers were restraining his mother, Ryan Pengelly, armed with a rifle, came in from another room in the home.

“The officers gave Pengelly verbal commands to drop the weapon,” the press release stated. “He did not comply with the officers commands, raised his rifle and pointed it at the officers. The two officers fired on the male striking him multiple times, stopping the threat.”

It is unclear whether Bonnie or Ryan Pengelly will face charges in the incident.

“That would be up to the prosecutor’s office and once the investigation is complete,” Flathead County Sheriff Chuck Curry said. “That’s not my decision.”

After surgery for his injuries, Ryan Pengelly was in the intensive care unit at Kalispell Regional Medical Center.  

A hospital spokeswoman on Thursday refused to give Pengelly’s condition.

Reporter Megan Strickland can be reached at 758-4459 or mstrickland@dailyinterlake.com.