Authorities continued to search Saturday afternoon for the man accused of killing four people at a Montana bar.
Local, state and federal law enforcement were looking for 45-year-old Michael Paul Brown, a US army veteran who lived in a small town, Anaconda, next to The Owl Bar, where on Friday morning he allegedly opened fire and killed a bartender and three patrons.
Officials located Brown’s abandoned white truck according to Lee Johnson, Montana division of criminal investigation administrator.
They concentrated their search in the mountains west of Anaconda, a town of less than 10,000 residents that was centered around a copper processing facility.
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“This is a small, tight-knit community that has been harmed by the heinous actions of one individual who does not represent what this community or Montanans stand for,” Johnson said.
On Friday night, nearby residents were encouraged to stay inside their homes and be on high alert as law enforcement believed Brown was armed and dangerous, Johnson said.
But on Saturday afternoon, Bill Sather, the Anaconda-Deer Lodge police chief, told residents it was “OK to go about your business in town” but to use caution and report anything suspicious to law enforcement.
Authorities released a photo of Brown, who is 5ft 10in tall; weighs about 170lbs; and has blue eyes and brown hair, according to USA Today.
The FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives were assisting local and state police with the search, according to posts on X.
As of Saturday afternoon, law enforcement had not released the names of the victims.
Brown served in the US army as an armor crewman from 2001 to 2005 and was deployed to Iraq from early 2004 until March 2005, according to an army spokesperson. He was in the Montana national guard from 2006 to March 2009 and left military service in the rank of sergeant.
“This isn’t just a drunk/high man going wild,” Brown’s niece, Clare Boyle, wrote in a Facebook message to the Associated Press. “It’s a sick man who doesn’t know who he is sometimes and frequently doesn’t know where or when he is either.”
Montana ranked second worst in the country in terms of prevalence of mental illness and access to care, according to the non-profit Mental Health America. Two-thirds of adults in Montana also lived in homes with guns, the highest rate in the country, according to a 2016 study from RAND, a thinktank.
The owner of the Firefly Café in Anaconda told the Associated Press that she locked up her business after a friend alerted her to the shooting.
“We are Montana, so guns are not new to us,” Barbie Nelson said. “For our town to be locked down, everybody’s pretty rattled.”
Associated Press contributed reporting
