Posted by (-201) 7 years ago
Folks, its time to put aside our differences and come together as a community. Prayers go out to the Ed Martin family.
Local law enforcement officers are searching for suspects in the homicide of a 78-year-old Miles City man that occurred Monday night.
According to Miles City Police Chief Doug Colombik, Ed Martin, 78, was found dead at 901 N. Second St. after the police and Custer County Sheriff’s Office deputies responded to an initial report of a hostage situation at about 11:30 p.m. Colombik said Martin was the victim of a homicide.
The telephone lists that address as the residence of Ed and Helen Martin.
Helen Martin was beaten and was transported by Miles City Fire and Rescue to Holy Rosary Healthcare from 209 N. Seventh St.
There was no information on her condition at presstime.
Local schools were on soft lockdown for a little more than two hours this morning, but following a check with law enforcement the lockdown was lifted around 11:45 a.m.
Police, the sheriff’s office and the Montana Division of Criminal Investigation are handling the investigation.
The names of the suspects have not been released, but Colombik confirmed that there is more than one suspect.
At this point Colombik said they do not have a reason behind the homicide and beating. Law enforcement is actively pursuing the leads in the case.
Miles City’s public schools were placed on “soft lockdown” this morning out of concerns following news of the search for suspects.
“I found out about 9 this morning that there was a potential situation in town and that there was a suspect still at large,” said Superintendent of Schools Keith Campbell, adding, “I heard this secondhand, not knowing any further information. So I placed the schools on a soft lockdown.”
Campbell explained that a soft lockdown means that the elementary schools were not sending kids out at recess.
“We already have controlled access at our doors, where the parents are buzzed in,” he said, “so the schools were told just to follow that procedure until we got further information.”
Around 11 a.m. Campbell got in touch with the chief of police, who reportedly told him there was no inherent risk for the school system, and it was not a school-related issue.
Campbell said the chief also indicated that about 15 hours had elapsed since the incident and he felt the schools were safe and could come out of lockdown.
So the lockdown was lifted around 11:45 a.m. and normal lunch and recess schedules were in effect.
The district uses a text and email alert system called SchoolMessenger to notify parents of various things. According to Campbell, a message was sent from the high school, but none was sent to elementary parents because the elementary schools just got the system and are still training on it.
Garfield is the only elementary school without a controlled-access door at this point, but in lockdowns the doors are manually locked and people must knock to gain entrance, he explained. The high school has three controlled-access doors.
On Tuesday around 1 p.m. the house at 901 N. Second St. was taped off with crime scene and a sheriff’s deputy was parked out front, reportedly awaiting crime scene investigators from the Department of Criminal Investigation.
Josh Rath wrote:So by ME releasing the names on here, all is well.
Richard Bonnie JR, did you read what you just posted. We are not trying to bring Ed back however if that was possible we dam sure would. Ed is gone and he cant fight for his justice. You say let LE do their job. If you read the latest news you will see that the chief and LE dropped the ball on this one. You read it and then come back here with your arrogant comments. Justice For Ed and Helen........