“I wanted them to arrest Colton because we were terrified he was going to kill himself. We thought that if he was arrested he could finally get a mental health evaluation and get some help,” Darling said last Tuesday, on what would have been her son’s 22nd birthday. “In my opinion, they didn’t get him help because they wanted to use him as an informant.”

“He was obviously stoned out of his mind, playing Hollywood with the gun and the pot,” said Frank Peterson. “We should have gotten him help sooner and we failed. But in the end, we had nowhere else to turn but the police, and they let us down.”

*****

Police maintain they did everything in their power to assist Peterson, even offering him a ride to St. Patrick Hospital during a July 26 interview after the drug bust. In Missoula, St. Pat’s is the principal point of entry, besides jail, for someone in crisis who requires immediate mental health services.

Met with resistance from Peterson, however, the officers opted to continue with the drug investigation. They released Peterson to his mother after the interview, with an agreement that he would re-contact the investigators with information the next day at 5 p.m.