Restraining order issued in shooting case

A judge ordered Friday that a woman whose alleged threats brought officers to a home on Looking Glass Avenue in Kalispell on Tuesday have no contact with either her son, who was shot multiple times by the officers, or his girlfriend.

Melissa Pleasant, 24, filed for a temporary order of protection against Bonnie Pengelly, 46, because Pengelly allegedly made threats that she would kill herself and Pleasant.

Pleasant claimed in the restraining order that Pengelly had told coworkers that she was “going to come home and shoot me dead and herself.”

Pleasant wrote that Pengelly allegedly also told other family members and a housemate that she wanted to kill Pleasant.

The report of the threats was relayed to Pleasant by a sheriff’s deputy who thought her safety might be in jeopardy.

“Detective told me about her wanting to kill me dead with the guns that were in the house,” Pleasant wrote in the restraining order granted by Flathead County District Court on Friday. The order also includes protection for Ryan Pengelly, 30, who was shot in the incident.

Bonnie Pengelly told the Daily Inter Lake on Wednesday that she was not suicidal or homicidal at the time of the call, but she no longer lives at Looking Glass Avenue and does not have a cellphone, making it difficult to follow up her account of the events.

Authorities have not said who made the initial report that brought the two officers to the home on Tuesday afternoon.

The Kalispell Police Department has said that the officers responded to a call involving a homicidal and suicidal woman. The department says Ryan Pengelly emerged from the back of the home with a gun after Bonnie Pengelly resisted arrest, and that the officers fired several shots at him to protect themselves. According to Kalispell Police, the man pointed the gun at officers and would not obey verbal commands to put the gun down.

Police Chief Roger Nasset has said that he believes his officers’ accounts are “100 percent” accurate, but more details in the case have not been released pending outside investigation by the Flathead County Sheriff’s Office. There is no audio or video record of the event to corroborate anyone’s statements.

James Malley, 23, was present during the shooting. He said the officers started shooting at Ryan Pengelly, but Malley was not looking in that direction at the time. “I didn’t really know what they were firing at,” he told the Inter Lake. He said the officers fired approximately a dozen rounds.

Malley defended Pengelly’s entering the room with a gun, saying that reaction would be typical of any man who woke from a dead sleep and heard his mother yelling for help.

This is the second time Malley has had someone close to him shot by a law officer. His cousin Mark Andrew Keeley, 13, was killed April 22, 2007, when officers fired on a vehicle that he had stolen in Choteau County. The officers were cleared by a jury. Malley said his family’s prior brush with deadly force has not impacted his view of law enforcement or his view of what happened in the shooting in his home.

“I’ve always been pretty respectful to cops,” Malley said. “I’m not anti-law enforcement at all. I’m anti-police brutality. They take it to the extreme a lot in America, but I’ll stand and have a conversation with a cop.”

Pleasant also said Malley was not anti-police and had even put drywall up in the homes of some law officers in the past.

“James’s family is friends with the cops,” Pleasant said.

Pleasant has been with Ryan Pengelly at the hospital, but said she is not authorized by the family to give too many details about Ryan’s condition.

“He’s stable,” Pleasant said.

Ryan is an Army combat veteran who served two tours in Afghanistan and one tour in Iraq, where he received a traumatic brain injury.

The nonprofit Operation Finally Home provided him with his mortgage-free home in 2013. Now an online account has been set up to help pay for the property taxes on the property and mounting medical bills. Family and friends are also issuing updates on Pengelly’s condition from the page https://www.gofundme.com/4bj6ygxz.

According to the page, Ryan’s breathing is being assisted by a non-invasive ventilation assist machine.

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