Jurors found a Billings police officer justified in fatally shooting a man inside a casino early one morning in April after he claimed he had a gun and hostages.
The coroner’s inquest into the death of Shawn Michael Hubbard, 44, took place Thursday in Yellowstone County District Court. Jurors deliberated for roughly 20 minutes before determining that Sgt. Bret Becker was justified in using lethal force.
Becker shot and killed Hubbard at the Lucky Lil's Casino at 15th Street West and Grand Avenue on April 10, 2018, around 1:30 a.m.
Becker fired his patrol rifle eight times, hitting Hubbard twice in the chest. Inside the casino at the time were one employee and five patrons, three of whom were crouching behind poker machines in the northeast corner of the building alongside Hubbard, who was standing at the time he was shot.
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Hubbard was armed with a CO2 pistol, but officers, a casino employee and a casino patron all testified it looked like a handgun.
Officers had been trying to find Hubbard in connection with a domestic violence call shortly before they found him at the casino. He’d told his ex-girlfriend he had a gun and was going to rob a casino, and that “a pig is going to have to shoot me,” according to Officer Jayden Romero, who listened on speakerphone to the call Hubbard placed to his ex-girlfriend on which the statement was made.
The ex-girlfriend told officers Hubbard frequented the Lucky Lil’s Casino on Grand Avenue, where they found him shortly after responding to the domestic violence call.
Romero had received other calls from Hubbard’s ex-girlfriend in the two weeks before his death that concerned him, he said. The woman suspected he had been using meth and taking her prescription pills and said he had become increasingly violent, Romero testified. The woman said she feared for her life, Romero testified.
Casino employee Nick Haney said Hubbard was a regular patron at Lucky Lil’s, and that he was not very social but that they knew each other on a first-name basis. Haney said Hubbard had the characteristics of a “user” and that he was often “grinding his teeth, sweating all the time.”
Haney said Hubbard had visited the casino twice on the night he was killed — first around 11 p.m. On that first visit, Haney said, Hubbard was “going off about” a restraining order he was facing due to a domestic violence report and swearing about the police. Haney said Hubbard drank water, did not gamble, went to the bathroom for roughly 15 minutes, and said he might move to Florida and that it would likely be the last time Haney would see him.
Hubbard returned to the casino around 1:15 a.m., Haney said, adding that it was around the time he typically began cleaning up for the end of his shift.
Hubbard buzzed to be let in, because the casino keeps doors locked at night and admits only known customers, Haney said. Hubbard seemed “very agitated,” Haney said, and told him a “cop just pulled a gun on me, better not let them in.” Hubbard told Haney not to unlock the doors for the police multiple times, he said.
Haney testified that Hubbard had told the customers they “might want to get out of here” before pulling a gun. Haney asked Hubbard to let him get the customers safely out of the way and into the office, he said. Hubbard said he didn’t want to hurt anyone but insisted Haney not let the police in.
Haney said he tried to buzz police in, but only one door unlocks at a time, and he believed officers were trying the wrong door.
Becker, the police shift supervisor that night, testified that as more officers arrived and they could not get into the building, they decided to break the door using a window punch. Becker said officers were concerned that Hubbard was inside, armed, with casino patrons and said they were further concerned when employees did not let police in when they buzzed.
After breaking through the glass, Becker and other officers entered the main door at the southeast corner of the building, while Hubbard and some of the patrons began moving into the northeast corner of the building.
Becker testified that he saw one woman in the northwest area of the building but that his focus was on Hubbard. Becker said he could see Hubbard’s gun clearly because it was dark and he was wearing a light shirt, but that he didn’t learn until later that it was a CO2 pistol and not a real gun.
Becker and Hubbard exchanged words for roughly 30 seconds, the sergeant said. Becker told Hubbard multiple times to put his hands up and to drop his gun. He said that when he heard Hubbard say, “I’ll shoot, I have hostages,” he decided to fire.
Three of the casino patrons were crouched behind a poker machine in the northeast corner of the building at the time, according to video played for jurors. One of them, Matthew Shelhamer, testified that he was within arm’s reach of Hubbard, and that Hubbard was standing, while he and the other customers were crouching behind a machine.
The casino employee had managed to lock himself inside the office at the time of the shooting, and officers later located a woman who had hid inside the bathroom, according to Thursday’s testimony.
Hubbard died of two gunshot wounds to the chest, according to Deputy Medical Examiner Aldo Fusaro. Either wound would have been fatal, he said.
Hubbard had both meth and methadone in his system at the time of his death, the medical examiner said. He had 0.78 mg/liter of methadone in his blood. For a first-time user, 0.4 mg/liter could be lethal, Fusaro said. Methadone is a drug used to wean people off of opioid addiction.
Hubbard also had “significant” levels of meth in his blood, or 4.8 mg/liter, and had taken the drug within 24 hours of his death, Fusaro said.
Mike McCarthy, who is the primary use of force instructor at the Montana Law Enforcement Academy, told jurors Becker was legally justified in using lethal force and that U.S. Supreme Court precedent requires jurors to consider what Becker knew at the time, and not what he later learned — which was that Hubbard had a CO2 pistol and not a handgun.
McCarthy and Becker both testified that without the customers in the casino, officers could have initiated talks with Becker and tried to persuade him to surrender himself. But the presence of bystanders complicated the situation.
“It’s only going to take one of those individuals to freak out, I’ll say, to panic and cause more of a problem for those officers to try to control,” McCarthy said. “You add other people into the mix and it gets tougher.”
Hubbard’s death came on the heels of the officer-involved shooting of Zachary Glen Hoven the day before. A coroner’s inquest in that case has not yet been conducted.
The most recent officer-involved shooting in Billings occurred Jan. 20.