3 felonies dismissed against former Gallatin County man

A man who had faced three felony counts of criminal endangerment in Bozeman and had his guns and ammo seized was not found to have committed those offenses.

The man, 57-year-old, John Joseph Gonzalez, had the felonies dismissed and instead pleaded guilty to misdemeanor firearm charges.

Gonzalez told Belgrade News he had equipped a shed in his trailer park to be soundproof for firearms testing and accidentally left the door open during one such test, which prompted at least one neighbor to report the sound of gunshots to authorities. This was about 10:40 p.m. March 8, 2024, at the Covered Wagon Mobile Home Park south of West Oak Street and east of North 19th Avenue. Gonzalez had been testing a Glock 20 10mm pistol and also fired an AR-15.

“I fired into a bucket of sand just like we did in the military,” Gonzalez said. "In the military, it was automatic fire and we just, you know, fired into these buckets of sand. You have to get rid of the ammo, because we couldn't take any ammo back to the barracks. So once the judge heard all that and seen all that, he's like, ‘This is not criminal endangerment.’”

Gonzalez is a disabled vet, according to a Pretrial Screening Packet on file with the district court.

“The worst part of all of this was that everybody – my boss, my friends and acquaintances, you know – they all think I was drunk and firing a weapon straight up into the air,” Gonzalez said.

Gonzalez has maintained that he was not under the influence of alcohol at the time of the incident. When he and his attorneys asked for the breathalyzer and urine test from the sheriff's office, that information reportedly was unavailable.

Gonzalez said he built and reinforced the shed to be “like a Sherman tank.”

“So there is no way anybody was in danger,” Gonzalez said.

Ohman found Gonzalez violated state law 45-8-343, which makes it illegal, with some exceptions, to discharge a firearm within the limits of any town or city or a private enclosure that contains a dwelling house. The offense is punishable by a fine not to exceed $25. Ohman ordered Gonzalez to pay fines and fees totaling $200, according to the judge’s sentencing order. Ohman ordered the sheriff’s office to return property seized from Gonzalez.

Each of the former counts of criminal endangerment, by contrast were punishable by as much as 10 years in prison and a $50,000 fine.

"I was just so freaked out and, you know, panicked,” Gonzalez recalled. “What's going to happen? Even if it was just three counts, that's still 30 years.”

When sheriff’s deputies arrived to Gonzalez’s residence to investigate the gunshots, the situation escalated needlessly, according to his account. He wasn’t truthful to the deputies about what happened and didn’t comport himself in an ideal manner, he indicated. In jail shortly after his arrest, he apologized to an officer for not being truthful, but the damage was done.

“I mean, if they felt that I was nice, calm, cool, and collected, and I was just really nice, I think things would have been different,” Gonzalez said.

His assessment of the quality of the law enforcement investigation wasn’t without criticism. Gonzalez disagreed with the deputies’ search of his house and the reasoning that reportedly led one officer to conclude rounds had been fired outdoors.

The whole affair involved significant disruption to his life, Gonzalez indicated. He had to sell his car to help pay costs of prosecution, and he had to move out due to having broken the trailer park rules. He now lives in Butte with family and will be undergoing back surgery in the near future.

“Once the surgery's done and I'm healed, I'll go look for my own place,” Gonzalez said.