GREAT FALLS, Montana — A 29-year-old man killed by law-enforcement officers at a Great Falls home first fired on the officers through a closed door, then again while he was trying to flee, state officials leading an investigation into the shooting said Thursday.
Federal, state and local officers were attempting to serve a felony warrant on Thomas Edward Pulst on Wednesday when the shooting occurred, the state Department of Justice said in a statement.
Montana Department of Corrections records say Pulst is a parole absconder who has twice been convicted of criminal endangerment, once in 2004 and again in 2008.
Officers talked with other people in the home and determined Pulst was inside, state officials said. They ordered three adults and a child to leave the home and entered while other officers covered possible exits.
Pulst fired toward officers from a room through a closed door, agency spokesman John Barnes said. He then fled the room with two handguns and ran out a back door, where two officers were waiting.
Pulst fired at the officers, who returned fire, hitting and killing him, the agency statement said.
No officers were wounded, Barnes said.
It was not immediately clear how many times Pulst was shot or how many rounds were fired. An autopsy was being conducted, Barnes said.
The officers involved were from the U.S. Marshals Service, the Great Falls Police Department and Montana Probation and Parole.
Barnes could not say which officers fired the shots, how many officers there were or whether any of them had been placed on leave.
The state agency's Division of Criminal Investigation is investigating at the request of the Great Falls Police Department. The report will be turned over to the Cascade County Attorney's Office once it is complete.
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