Johnny Lee Perry was shot and killed by Sean Evans of Missoula County Sheriff’s Office on August 29th, 2021, but today’s post is less about the LEOs involved in killing Johnny than it is about the guy who drove Johnny out to the Deep Creek area that afternoon, Jack Maxvill.
For those fond of the days when we got to see mugshots (including my own), here’s Jack’s appearance on charges that occurred before Johnny’s death:
Oh LOOKIE THERE, I said to myself upon examining Jack Maxvill’s arrest record, it’s former Detective, GUY BAKER, who is listed as the arresting officer, which I find both interesting and confusing, since MPD stands for Missoula Police Department, and these charges stem from crimes alleged (PDF) to have occurred in Superior, Montana.
Hmmm.
Oh, LOOKIE THERE, I said to myself again upon seeing the name Deputy Funke. I paused, taking a moment to rub my new eyes in case maybe they were hallucinating or something.
Nope.
Seeing that Funke was listed as a Deputy at the time of these original charges told me that the Sheriff serving Mineral County was Mike Toth, which made me think of the County Attorney, Ellen Donohue, and the, ahem, shall I say better working relationship the two offices had?
Since Ellen Donohue is the County Attorney for Powell County now, where Montana’s main prison in Deerlodge is located, I called her office and left a very detailed message of what I was hoping to get from a call back, ensuring I probably won’t get a call back.
If I do, here are some questions Ellen Donohue can anticipate me asking so that she can tell me nothing because CCJI (Confidential Criminal Justice Information).
First question: if Jack Maxvill was on any kind of “supervision” (known on the street as being “on paper”), then WHO was Jack Warren Maxvill’s probation or parole officer?
Second question: is the Mineral County Courthouse bugged? Because I have had TWO people tell me this in the last 48 hours, leading me to believe that the Mineral County Sheriff’s Office really is monitoring activities inside the courthouse.
Third question: if Jack Maxvill was, I would assume, not able to have contact with his daughter, why did he claim to have called HER to communicate HIS concern about Johnny Lee Perry on the day Perry was killed, supposedly compelling her to be the one to call 911, thus setting in motion the events that led to Johnny Lee Perry getting shot in the back and bleeding out in the woods?
For context on the assumption I’m making that Jack Maxvill should NOT have been calling his daughter, here’s another screenshot from the court records:
If I’m mis-remembering how law enforcement was alerted to the alleged risk posed to Jack Warren Maxvill by Johnny Lee Perry, then I’m sure the transcripts of the Coroner’s Inquest are available and easily accessible for the public to peruse, right?
While I haven’t made any recent effort to get the transcripts for this case, I continue to monitor how other people are trying to access public information in Missoula, so, for now, here’s some of the information that was reported about Johnny’s Coroner’s Inquest by local media at the time:
The inquest was the second of two such hearings scheduled in Missoula this week relating to deaths involving city and county law enforcement officers. On Thursday, a separate jury also found that the sheriff’s deputy who shot Johnny Lee Perry II last year did not commit a crime. Deputy Sean Evans, who is white, shot Perry, a 31-year-old Black man, in the back while he ran away from officers. Perry was carrying a machete but had not approached or tried to injure officers, according to vehicle and body camera footage. A toxicology report later found Perry had consumed THC and methamphetamine prior to his death.
During an inquest, the deceased person and their family are not typically represented by an attorney who is allowed to question witnesses. Members of the jury are allowed to ask questions, and members of the public may also ask questions if they are submitted and approved by the presiding coroner.
The description of the Coroner’s Inquest in Montana shows that the family of the victim aren’t represented by legal professionals, nor do they have the ability to ask questions. Maybe that’s because the “Coroner’s Inquest” is an antiquated relic of the past indicating Montana hasn’t evolved its processes for accountability beyond old world pretenses of keeping the King’s property accounted for.
To back up the idea that the Coroner’s Inquest is an antiquated process, here’s what Spokane County says regarding where the inquest process came from originally:
Coroners are an ancient English institution, and Coroner Inquests became outdated centuries ago when the natural and medical sciences had developed to the point of having practical application to death investigations, and began being used in most societies (including Scotland – Scotland never had coroners) outside of England and the sphere of the British Empire/Commonwealth.
Coroners and coroner inquests were not put in place to determine if a death was or was not justified.
Corner inquests were intended to force members of the public to be available to the coroner for questioning (“inquest” means “making an inquiry” – not the holding of a trial), done to serve the interests of the King of England – particularly property interests of the King.
Inquests were always supposed to be about the finding of facts, not the finding of fault.
That last part about facts vs. fault really grinds my gears. How is one to compartmentalize facts from fault? In Johnny Lee Perry’s case, he was ONE man with a knife vs. MANY men with guns, and I watched the entire scenario play out on camera as Justin White, the BIG DOG for the Sheriff’s Office, put his plan to “neutralize” a scrawny black dude into action because a piece of shit like Jack Maxvill had a daughter who claimed Daddy was in trouble call 911.
Yeah, BULLSHIT!
When I spoke with Zoe Tate during the time period of this lethal LEO incident, (which I call an execution for a reason), I got a much better sense of what kind of men are employed by the Missoula County Sheriff’s Office. Five years later, what I’ve learned only reinforces my concerns.
It takes LOTS of bad actors, though, to make things as corrupt as they currently are in western Montana, so let me conclude today’s post with the perspective of Ellen Donohue when she was being freshly interviewed at the beginning of her tenure in Mineral County:
One thing that has surprised Donohue is the high number of felony cases in Mineral County, given the size of the population. There were 92 cases in 2016, compared to 100 in the Anaconda-Deer Lodge area, which boosts a population of nearly 10,000. But, she understands that a number of those cases stem from Interstate 90, which stretches across the county.
There’s a pipeline of illegal drugs that transvers the Inland Northwest, where Interstate 90 sees a large volume of narcotics, though the exact amount is hard to guess.
“I understand Mineral County’s situation, where someone gets pulled over on the freeway and it can quickly turn into a drug case,” she said. “But it appears that there is a lot of well-trained law officials for the drug cases.”
Yes, I’m sure it appeared there were a lot of well-trained law officials managing that “pipeline of illegal drugs” when Ellen first started, because she didn’t know any better, but what would Ellen have to say now? If she calls me back, I’ll definitely let readers know, so stay tuned.
One final article I found from out neighbors in Washington state is from 2010 and details how Montana’s process of reviewing “officer-involved” deaths was being considered as a model to duplicate at the time. My thought?
DON’T DO IT LIKE MONTANA DOES!!!
In Montana, coroner’s inquests are conducted for every fatal police shooting in that state and whenever someone dies in law enforcement custody. The same requirement exists in Nevada, with Las Vegas authorities taking the extra step of televising their inquests. And elsewhere, communities are embracing inquests to help ensure public accountability as the number of officer-involved shootings escalates.
Now, following a rash of fatal police shootings statewide, including four in the past four months in Spokane County, some legislators want to make inquests mandatory in Washington, too. King County typically holds inquests into officer-involved shootings and allows a lawyer for the family of the deceased to participate. Legislation to require inquests for all fatal law enforcement shootings and in-custody deaths in the state is expected to be introduced during the 2011 session.
“This is a quicker, more transparent way to understand what taxpayer-paid servants – public servants – are doing,” said state Sen. Adam Kline, D-Seattle, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and an intended bill sponsor. “These inquests answer what long, drawn-out litigation otherwise would have answered … and when they do it, they speak with authority.”
Well, in Montana, the authorities are corrupt, and no one at the State level is capable of dealing with it.
Prove me wrong, Austin!
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