C-Falls woman wounded in Spokane shoot-out

A Columbia Falls woman awaiting sentencing for drugs and deceptive practices was wounded in a shoot-out near Spokane on March 4.

According to Spokane County Sheriff’s Office Dep. Mark Gregory, Bonnie Ulrick, 37, fled to Spokane after cutting off a GPS monitoring bracelet she was ordered to wear pending her sentencing in Flathead County District Court.

Standoff in Spokane

Gregory said the incident began at about 3 a.m. when deputies responded to a Spokane Valley motel to follow up on a stolen vehicle report.

When deputies contacted Ulrick and her companion, 32-year-old Eric Heil, it turned into a standoff, and both a SWAT team and negotiators were called in. Heil was wanted on a felony burglary warrant out of Flathead County

Ulrick reportedly pointed a pistol out a window and fired at least one shot, Gregory said. A SWAT team marksman returned fire, and Ulrick was hit in the hand. She was listed in satisfactory condition at a Seattle hospital the next day.

According to a Kalispell Police dispatch log, Ulrick told a woman while on her way to Spokane that she would get into a gunfight before being taken into custody.

The shooting is under investigation by the multi-agency Spokane Investigative Regional Response team.

According to court documents, investigators said in a warrant that Ulrick and Heil “threatened to shoot it out with law enforcement — suicide by cop — instead of going back to prison.” Ulrick allegedly told police she would not surrender and “knew it was going to end badly.” The two had barricaded themselves in the motel room with a mattress, and SWAT team personnel used gas to force them out.

Flathead charges

Ulrick had pleaded guilty in Flathead County on Jan. 15 to felony counts of drug possession and deceptive practices. She was charged with spending about $1,350 using two credit cards stolen in June 2013.

She was tracked down after an attempted burglary at a residence near Lone Pine State Park. Ulrick and the man traced to the burglary were arrested at the Outlaw Inn in Kalispell. A search of the room turned up drug paraphernalia with meth residue.

While in the back of the patrol car, as Ulrick later admitted to Kalispell police, she swallowed two “8-ball” baggies of meth. She later threw them up at Kalispell Regional Medical Center, and the evidence was sent to the State Crime Lab.

Ulrick’s public defender reached a plea agreement on Jan. 15 in which the state recommended 15 years with 10 suspended for drug possession and deceptive practice.

The state also would recommend dismissing a third count for felony accountability to burglary. Ulrick also agreed to pay $540 in restitution for her alleged involvement in a June 25, 2013, robbery of the Blue and White Motel in Kalispell. Sentencing was scheduled for March 13.

But on Feb. 12, Ulrick wrote to District Court Judge Robert Allison asking that she be granted two weeks off before sentencing so she could get her affairs in order. She agreed to wear a GPS monitoring bracelet and a drug patch during her release.

“I am so sorry to bother you, but I honestly don’t know who else I can ask for help,” she wrote.

Escapes the Flathead

Allison granted the temporary release on Feb. 20. The stipulation on file states that if she failed to return by March 10, she could be charged with bail jumping.

According to a violation report from Compliance Monitoring Services, Ulrick removed the bracelet around 12:32 a.m. on March 2. Ryan Keeler, of Compliance Monitoring Services, said Kalispell police responded within three or four minutes, but Ulrick had already ditched the bracelet in a drive-through mailbox.

She and Heil allegedly drove to Spokane in a 2014 Jeep Compass stolen from Green Nissan in Evergreen.

This was not Ulrick’s first big brush with the law in Montana. In February 2005, she was pursued in a high-speed chase from Plains to Thompson Falls — four days after her fiancé seriously wounded another man and then committed suicide at her home.

At one point in the incident, Ulrick jumped out of her car and threatened to shoot herself with a handgun. She brandished the firearm at several officers before she shot herself in the arm and was eventually taken into custody.

Ulrick later admitted to police she had tried to get the officers to kill her. She was sentenced to five years with the Montana Department of Corrections for criminal endangerment and felony assault on a peace officer.

Heil, the man with her in Spokane, previously was sentenced on a 2002 felony burglary case to two years with the Corrections Department followed by three years of probation. He received a similar sentence in December 2009 after being convicted of felony deceptive practices.