Alabama authorities took his gun away after a violent domestic incident. 9 months later they gave it back, and he used it to shoot and kill his wife.
HOOVER, Alabama — Late one night in February 2019, a 31-year-old woman in a troubled marriage was rushed to an emergency room in a Birmingham, Alabama, suburb, with a gunshot wound in her upper right arm.
X-rays show the damage to Megan Montgomery's upper right arm from when she was shot in February 2019 and the surgery to repair it ."So the restraining order can prohibit him from ‘contacting, phoning, texting, harassing, stalking,’ but oh by the way, you can have a gun? That’s ridiculous," said Megan’s mother, Susann Montgomery-Clark.
In 2019, the most recent year the data is available, 964 women were shot and killed by their domestic partners compared to 211 men and women who died that year from mass shootings. That’s one woman killed by an intimate partner every nine hours.when a domestic violence protective order is in place, few states actually take the guns away or keep them away from abusers once a protective order is issued. Alabama has such a law, but domestic abusers often end up keeping their weapons.
Megan Montgomery did nearly everything experts say you’re supposed to do to get away from a domestic abuser, and still she died.Jason McIntosh, a 43-year-old officer with the Hoover, Alabama, police department, married Megan Montgomery, 13 years his junior, in February 2018 at their local courthouse. One year later they held a second ceremony in New York. Montgomery posted dozens of happy pictures on Instagram.
McIntosh, 6’4" and 225 pounds, told the responding officers that during the struggle he thought Montgomery had his cell phone in her hand. According to the report, McIntosh said it was only when the gun went off and the bullet hit his wife that he realized they’d been fighting over a gun. The ALEA report does not include any reference to a chilling 13-minute recording of a conversation between McIntosh and Montgomery that Montgomery’s attorney says she gave the agency. On the tape, reviewed by NBC News, McIntosh talked about his fascination with serial killers and how planning mass shootings was a"soothing thought" that helped him sleep at night.
Montgomery’s filing asked the court to remove Mcintosh’s firearms. In response, the local judge issued a mutual restraining order telling the couple to stay away from each other. The order did not specify that firearms be removed. Meanwhile, McIntosh was repeatedly texting ALEA Special Agent Cunningham asking to get his gun back, according to documentation reviewed by NBC News. McIntosh claimed he needed the gun to get a new private security job. Though he had used it as a duty weapon with the Hoover Police Department, the gun was his personal property.
They left the bar together and drove around in McIntosh’s truck, ending up seven miles away in the parking lot of the Mountain Brook Athletic Center, say Mountain Brook police. McIntosh kept his gun in the truck, according to his lawyer. On March 31, 2021, McIntosh pleaded guilty to the reduced charge of murder. He was sentenced to 30 years in state prison.A spokesperson for ALEA said,"If ALEA had not returned the weapon, Mr. McIntosh could have legally purchased a firearm." But McIntosh’s attorney noted that even though his client could have bought another gun, he never did.
"What they should have been thinking was this person is not eligible to possess guns because this restraining order exists," said Nichols."And therefore, I can’t give him his gun back."
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