Coroner’s inquest clears officer in 2021 shooting

By DERRICK PERKINS

For the Hungry Horse News

A jury at a coroner’s inquest last week deemed justified the 2021 law enforcement-involved shooting of a man while he held his estranged partner hostage at a river access site off U.S. 2.

After listening to testimony in Flathead County District Court throughout the morning of Oct. 5, including from the deputy U.S. marshal who fired the shots that killed 24-year-old Xavier Hutt, the jury returned just after 1 p.m. with the ruling. A simple majority of the nine-member panel was needed to make the determination.

The series of events that led to Hutt’s death began with the killing of 51-year-old Patricia Putnam in Great Falls on July 15, 2021. According to accounts at the time and witness testimony earlier this week, Hutt allegedly killed the woman while taking her adult daughter, Hutt’s ex partner, hostage just after midnight. His ex had recently moved back in with her mother, testified agent Mark Strangio, a criminal investigator with the state Department of Justice.

From there, he headed north toward Havre and eventually turned west onto U.S. 2, taking him to a river access site between Essex and West Glacier, where he came to a stop. After several minutes of back-and-forth with a Montana Highway Patrol trooper — captured on a dashboard camera — Hutt was shot while standing outside his vehicle.

The hostage, who allegedly was pepper sprayed and sexually assaulted during her abduction, was rescued as first responders attempted to treat Hutt. She later told authorities that she expected to die without their intervention, according to courtroom testimony.

COUNTY ATTORNEY

Travis Ahner told jurors that their job was not to weigh in on the alleged crimes committed prior to the law enforcement involved shooting, but to focus on the circumstances surrounding Hutt’s death. Still, they should consider the context, he said. That included 911 calls Hutt made during the lengthy police pursuit through multiple counties and tribal lands. The recordings, played for the jury, elicited moans and cries from Hutt’s relatives in the audience. Though he lived in Missoula at the time, Hutt considered Troy his hometown.

In the recordings, Hutt can be heard telling dispatchers he would kill if officers continued to try and stop him using spike strips. “If they do it again, I’m going to shoot my hostage,” he said. During a second call, he told dispatchers he planned to die. Hutt can be heard explaining that he has a blood clot and just months to live. He would not go to prison, he said. “I don’t prefer to do 25-to-life,” he said. “I prefer to be shot to death.” “I expect to have rounds in me by the end of the night,” he said at another point as the dispatcher tries to talk him down, asking him to pull over, release his hostage and surrender.

In that call, he expressed concern for his ex partner. In the background, she can be heard sobbing: “It’s all my fault.”

“It’s all my fault,” Hutt replied.

In a third and final call, Hutt informs dispatchers that he’s about out of gas. He also asks after medical care for his hostage.

Great Falls Police officer Rick Brinka, a member of a regional U.S. Marshals Service task force, testified that pursuing law enforcement was aware of the 911 calls, including the threats to the hostage, if not everything that was said in those conversations. He told jurors that they did not know whether Hutt’s hostage was injured or dead, but they believed he had murdered once already that day.

“He had already committed a homicide,” Brinka said. “He already had shown a willingness, means and ability to do that.”

Witnesses, Brinka among them, described a confused scene at the river access site during the final minutes of Hutt’s life. Multiple members of law enforcement testified that radios were not working and cellular service was unavailable in the remote stretch of highway near Glacier National Park. A helicopter circling the access site made it difficult for the officers, who hailed from a variety of county, state, tribal and federal agencies, to hear one another.

Brinka said he and Deputy U.S. Marshal Michael Riley were mainly concerned about the welfare of the hostage upon arrival. The two closed in on where a Highway Patrol trooper was communicating with Hutt, he said, describing Hutt as agitated. Other officers there indicated the hostage was in the passenger seat of the vehicle. The two returned to their vehicle to fetch their weapons and then headed back to the standoff.

“My belief was that he … was going to harm her,” Brinka said. “I had every reason to believe his intentions were to harm her and maybe [himself] afterward.”

Earlier, he described the priority of life metric law enforcement employs in a hostage situation. The hostage is at the top, officers are considered second priority and the suspect is at the lowest rung, Brinka told jurors.

As the trooper continued shouting at Hutt, Brinka said he saw Riley take a knee. “He’s getting ready to eliminate the threat,” Brinka recalled. “The threat being the suspect.”

“DON’T DO it. Just put it down” shouted the Montana Highway Patrol trooper on the dashboard camera footage shown to the jury. “C’mon, man, just put it down. Don’t do it, bud.” The lengthy video clip — punctuated by sobs from Hutt’s relatives in attendance — ended with a series of bursts. The preceding footage is dark, but a silhouette can be seen standing near the open driver’s side door of a parked vehicle, occasionally ducking down. Later, the figure walked around the front of the vehicle — and out of sight.

Riley, who watched the clip emotionlessly from the witness stand, told the jury that Hutt was armed. When he moved to the front of the vehicle, he “could easily put rounds into the hostage and law enforcement would have been helpless to stop it,” Riley said.

Like Brinka, Riley referenced the priority of life and recalled not knowing whether Hutt’s hostage was injured or possibly bleeding out. He noted that some members of law enforcement near Hutt were potentially exposed to the alleged gunman.

The video showed Hutt step back around from the front of the vehicle. Riley testified that he saw an opening.

“I saw this as a moment to end the threat,” Riley said, recalling that he “took a knee and fired rounds.”

The firing continued as Hutt’s body crumpled. Riley said that law enforcement officers train to follow a suspect to the ground.

Body camera footage gave other perspectives on the shooting as well as the rush of law enforcement officers forward to secure Hutt and retrieve his hostage. Hutt was cuffed before medical aid was provided.

“The reason is we don’t know if the threat is over,” Riley said. “Often where there is one weapon, there are two.”

MARK STRANGIO, the state investigator tasked with reviewing the shooting, compiled 32 pieces of evidence from the scene, including Hutt’s weapon. An inventory revealed three rounds in the magazine and one in the chamber, Strangio testified.

He described his investigation as being similar to what would occur in any shooting. The only departure from other investigations occurred early on when he gave Flathead County’s crime team the go-ahead to process the scene. Traveling from Bozeman, Strangio said he asked the local unit to fill in for him in the interest of opening up the highway to traffic to and from the national park. “I was very comfortable … seeing what they had done thus far in the investigation when I got there,” he told the jury, saying their efforts followed his agency’s protocols.

Jurors asked him about command and control during the standoff and Strangio acknowledged that lessons could be learned from the shooting.

“There’s always room for improvement,” he said. But Strangio pointed to the number of jurisdictions and agencies involved as well as the pursuit itself. “It was constantly evolving,” Strangio said. “His position was constantly changing. And he had a hostage in the car.”

Before Strangio departed the stand, a juror asked whether he considered the investigation thorough. It included witness interviews, more than 150 measurements and upwards of 1,200 photographs as well as an autopsy, and ultimately came in at more than 1,500 pages. “I think so,” he said.