3-7-77: Time for a return to vigilante justice?

I had just turned west on Montana 82 last Friday evening when I heard the tires screeching behind me.

I looked in my rearview mirror to see a white Suburban skidding off of Montana 35 to make the turn behind me. “Tourist,” I first thought, thinking they missed the turn to Kalispell coming out of Bigfork. Then the vehicle climbed up on my back bumper as I was driving over the Sportsman’s Bridge. I realized I had a 10-61 — drunk driver — on my tail. I phoned 911, while the white SUV swerved around me to pass.

I caught sight of the driver but couldn’t catch the plate. I kept up with the car and watched it veer into the oncoming lane, then back across to the shoulder. It was terrifying to watch. My heart pounded and I thought I was going to see a terrible wreck.

A few miles down the road the vehicle nearly rear-ended a car in front of it, before swerving off the highway and into a nearby driveway. I followed the car to the driveway, but stayed on the county road, while the young male driver exited the vehicle. He had no shoes on, and stumbled toward my car. He began to reach into his back pocket, and not knowing if he had a weapon, I backed my car down the county road and watched; the driver was so wasted he could barely walk. I waited there to see if the guy tried to drive away.

At the start of Labor Day weekend, last Friday was a busy night for Flathead County law enforcement and Montana Highway Patrol. I waited for an hour for a trooper to arrive, and was relieved when he showed up. I showed him where the subject had pulled in to a driveway, so the trooper went to investigate. The man did not answer the door, and I assumed he was passed out. “He’s in there,” the trooper told me. “The computer screen is on with no screen saver activated, so he’s in there.”

I was disappointed. I had hoped to see justice played out in front of me, to see the drunk punk stuffed in the back of the patrol car. “Best we can do is get him for reckless driving,” the trooper told me. “Won’t be able to get him for DUI, but at least he’s on our radar now.”

He handed me a witness form to fill out, which I did. Now, we’ll let the system play out and see where it goes. I hope to soon see the kid in court and hear his story. But I have to wonder why no one else called. Surely I wasn’t the only person to see the drunk driver on a Friday evening coming out of Bigfork.

I talked about the situation to a friend — why I was the only one who called it in. She said, “What can you do about it?”

Make the call.

The trooper and I stood on the roadway outside the subject’s house last Friday night. “It’s a mess in there,” he said. “Graffiti all over the walls.”

He thanked me for doing my part.

I was still shaken from what I thought might be a fatal collision.

On the Montana Highway Patrol trooper’s uniform bore the numbers 3-7-77. It’s the vigilante symbol, borne from the days of frontier justice in Montana. The numbers were written on the doors of people who were about to receive vigilante justice in Montana’s pre-law-enforcement days in the 1800s. Some say it’s the measurements of a grave, a dire warning to clean up or get out. Others claim it to be the amount of time a person had to get out of town: 3 hours, 7 minutes and 77 seconds.

Our law-enforcement officials have the hardest job in the world, dealing with thugs and punks like this who threaten the safety of our community.

Maybe 150 years ago we’d paint his doorway with 3-7-77.

Justice for this kid, meanwhile, will have to be in another form.

When you see a drunk, make the call. That could be your son or daughter the drunk collides with. We don’t have to be vigilantes.

But we can be vigilant.