When people are arrested and booked in jail, like Jeremy Means was this week for allegedly stabbing and killing Vaughn Tlustosch, a mugshot photo is taken, but that photo is NO LONGER SHARED with the public. Here’s why, according to a 2024 article from The Pulp:
Missoula County is no longer posting booking photos — more commonly known as mugshots — on its online jail roster. The change began on Nov. 1, according to a press release from the Missoula County Sheriff’s Office, but caught the eye of the broader public when Missoula Mugs, a locally popular if controversial website that posted mugshots from the jail roster, announced that it had been “gutted” by the county and would no longer operate.
Questions from The Pulp to the sheriff’s office about the change were directed to Brian West, a deputy county attorney. West told The Pulp that the decision to remove mugshots from the jail roster — the names and charges of those held in county jail are still readily available online — came from an ongoing discussion that began in the spring between the county attorney’s office, the sheriff’s office, the jail commander and other county officials. The county started reviewing the practice, West said, because an individual had complained that the administrator of an online page had attempted to “extort” money in exchange for removing the mugshot.
To see what this alleged killer looks like I found a Facebook post from the Lewis and Clark County Sheriff’s Office from 2019, which I’ll post below, along with a few prescient comments about this violent offender who living, non-compliantly, in Missoula.
While the sentiment expressed by Stephanie Hensley is understandable, trash like Jeremy Means often find themselves in places that support them, like Missoula and Great Falls–two GREAT places for violent and sexual offenders to hang out without bothering to register themselves as offenders.
How many NON-COMPLIANT violent and sexual offenders does Missoula have? After setting some filters on the registry site I discovered Missoula has 52 non-compliant offenders, including Coty Low, the guy who tried kidnapping a 10 year old girl from a Missoula park in 2014.
A man accused of grabbing a 10-year-old girl as she played with her brother in a Missoula park has pleaded not guilty to attempted kidnapping.
The Missoulian reports 34-year-old Coty James Low appeared before District Judge Karen Townsend on Tuesday via video from jail. She continued his bail at $100,000.
Prosecutors say Low ran up to the children on June 21 and grabbed the girl by the leg. He carried her about 25 feet before the girl’s kicking and screaming caused him to drop her.
The girl’s father chased after the man and held him for police.
Low initially said he was trying to save the girl from a dog, and then told police he was looking for companionship and wasn’t thinking when he grabbed the girl.
Prosecutors say Low was convicted of sexually assaulting a nurse in April.
Another article goes into more detail about what Coty Low’s 2014 criminal history looked like before the attempted kidnapping of a 10 year old girl at Lion’s Park, which, incidentally, is the SAME park near the California Street bridge, where Jeremy Means is accused of his heinous crime.
Deputy Missoula County Attorney Jessica Finley told Justice of the Peace Amy Blixt that Low has a criminal history that has recently been escalating into more serious offenses.
“He was convicted of sexual assault in April for reaching up a nurse’s skirt and touching her genitals,” Finley said. “During the same weekend as this incident in the park, it was reported that he took off his pants and exposed himself to a mission group who helps the homeless. It looks like the offenses have graduated from indecent exposure to sexual assault on an adult, and now this attempted abduction of a 10 year-old girl. For that reason, the defendant poses a significant threat to the community, so the state is asking for bail of $100,000.”
How does a man convicted of sexual assault in April of 2014 find himself free in July of that same year to attempt a kidnapping? I mean, WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH THIS TOWN?
Unfortunately it’s NOT just Missoula. Great Falls, where the stabbing victim went to high school, is increasingly getting put on my radar for being a significant part of the trafficking world, which includes “homeless” people like the young tweaker living at Buckhouse bridge before getting arrested on meth charges in March.
With so many non-compliant offenders in Montana, you might think some outside help would be appreciated, but that is NOT the case in Cascade County, where Alex Rosen recently called out Great Falls authorities for being VERY uninterested in using his evidence of local offenders trying to fuck children to stop them from, you know, fucking children.
Why don’t you want any help catching sex offenders, Sheriff Slaughter?
Something is seriously rotten in Montana and I’m going to keep digging into the stink of this state’s corrupt criminal justice system even as it targets ME in another round of lawfare.
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Thanks for reading!
