Frequently Asked Questions (Placed in order by most frequently asked.)

Question 1:

 Who are the individuals heard in the video of the shooting?

Answer:

The voices heard are those of Kootenai County’s Deputy Bangs and the suspect Michael Madonna.  Officer Kralicek is not heard.

Question 2:

How did the suspect get a gun? Did he already have it when the officers arrived?

Answer:

The gun was hidden inside the residence before the officers arrived.  Madonna was handcuffed palm to palm and left unsupervised seated in a folding chair inside the garage. When Bangs turned around and walked away, Madonna slipped his handcuffs under his feet and ran inside the house to grab the gun--a .357 Magnum revolver.

Question 3:

Why were the officers at the house, what was the call?

Answer:

The initial call began as an attempted traffic stop by a city officer.  The deputies were following up on a hit-and-run at the suspect’s house after he fled the scene. Officer Kralicek was called to the scene by deputies for backup and to follow up on a theft that Madonna admitted to during the interview heard at the beginning of the video.

Question 4:

Was the suspect under the influence of drugs or alcohol?

Answer:

His blood-alcohol content (BAC) came back as .016 from the autopsy.

Question 5:

Did the suspect have any priors?

Answer:

Yes, he had a long history, including an assault on a peace officer a couple weeks before this incident.  During the earlier arrest, Madonna also managed to slip his cuffs in front of him, while being transported to jail for DUI, and he tried choking the officer and attempted to take his gun.  When he shot Officer Kralicek, Madonna was out on bail for those earlier charges.

Question 6:

Who caught and handcuffed the suspect the night Officer Kralicek was shot?

Answer:

When Officer Kralicek arrived on the scene initially, the suspect was out of sight and nobody would answer the door at the residence. Kralicek then turned the call over to Deputy Bangs, who called a tow truck to the house to impound the vehicle from the driveway. When the tow truck driver was getting into position to take the vehicle, Madonna opened the garage door. Bangs then apprehended the suspect inside the garage area, searched him, handcuffed him, and then sat him in a folding chair still inside the garage.

City officers did not know Madonna was in custody until Kralicek arrived back on-scene, at which time the foot pursuit began.

Question 7:

What happened to the shooter, was he caught?

A7. The suspect, Michael Madonna, died from multiple gunshot wounds he received from the deputies on the scene, following his shooting of Officer Kralicek.  Madonna was struck three times by the deputies’ bullets.