By Michael Clements
A mass shooting at the Owl Bar in Anaconda, Montana, on Aug. 1 resulted in multiple fatalities, according to a post on the Granite County Sheriff’s Office’s Facebook page.
Authorities confirmed that four people were killed in the shooting.
A woman who answered the telephone for the sheriff’s office said the information was posted to assist in the search for the suspected shooter. She said law enforcement in Deer Lodge County, where Anaconda is located, is handling the investigation.
The suspect has been identified as 45-year-old Michael Brown of Anaconda. He is reportedly wearing a tie-dyed shirt, blue jeans, and an orange bandana, and is driving a white Ford 150 pickup truck.
He is believed to be carrying a 7.62 mm semiautomatic rifle and should be considered armed and dangerous, the Sheriff’s Office stated.
The shooting happened around 10:30 a.m., according to the Montana Division of Criminal Investigation, which is leading the investigation. The agency confirmed four people were pronounced dead at the scene.
A helicopter hovered nearby as more than a dozen state and local law enforcement officers searched for the suspect in a wooded area, said Randy Clark, a retired police officer who lives there. Law enforcement locked down the area, allowing no traffic in or out.
A SWAT team cleared Brown’s home, next door to the bar. He was not found there and is believed to be in the Stump Town, Montana, area west of Anaconda.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the FBI are working with local law enforcement.
As reports of the shooting spread through town, business owners locked their doors and sheltered inside with customers. At Caterpillars to Butterflies Childcare, a nursery a few blocks from the shooting scene, owner Sage Huot said she’d kept the children inside all day after someone called to let her know about the violence.
“I’m closely monitoring the situation involving an active shooter in Anaconda,” Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte posted on X, while asking for people to join him and his wife in “praying for the victims, their loved ones, and the brave law enforcement officers responding to this tragedy.”
The National Fraternal Order of Police commented on the situation in a post on X. “We stand with the brave officers of the Anaconda-Deer Lodge County Law Enforcement Center, the Montana Highway Patrol, and every agency working around the clock to bring this suspect to justice,” the post reads.
Anaconda is a town of about 9,000 people, 75 miles southeast of Missoula.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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