Reported gunmen may have been hallucination

HAYDEN - Talk about a bad trip.

On Sunday at 1:30 a.m., Kootenai County Sheriff's Deputies arrived at a location on Government Way in Hayden to assist a marine unit with a male in his 20s who said he was running away from people who were chasing him.

When questioned by the deputies, the man said he went to a friend's house and was waiting for the friend to come home from work. While waiting, the man said two people, one wearing a red sweater and one wearing a black sweater, jumped out of the bushes holding black handguns.

"(The man) believed they pointed them at him," the deputy wrote in an incident report. "(He) was unable to hear what the males were yelling due to him running away from them but believed they would kill him."

According to the incident report, the man ran for approximately 10 minutes before flagging down law enforcement. The deputy noted that the man had a small cut on his left elbow, which he said he got when he fell on the pavement during his escape from the gunmen.

The deputy then asked the man if he had recently used any drugs and he admitted to the officer that he "had used 'shrooms' and marijuana" at 7 p.m.

"Due to (the man's) extremely excited behavior, jittery movements, and odd behavior, I believed (he) was under the influence of the drugs he admitted to using."

Deputies searched the area for the reported gunmen and found no one. The man later admitted to the deputies that he had been hallucinating earlier in the night "due to the 'shroom usage.'"

"I am not requesting that this report be reviewed by KCSO Detective Division for follow up, as I believe (the man) may have been hallucinating," the deputy wrote at the end of the report.