14-year-old described as person of interest by Billings police in weekend homicide

Billings, Montana – Two days after a 20-year-old man was shot and murdered outside the Berry’s Cherries Auto parking lot on Saturday night in an altercation involving a group of teenagers, the North Star Amusement carnival, which is held there, returned for business on Monday.

The person of interest in the initial report, according to Billings Police Lt. Matt Lennick, was 14 years old.

“It’s yet to be entirely determined who was pulling the trigger. But yeah, the individuals that we’re looking at involved are that young teenager, that 14, 15, 16. They’re all in that, you know, that mid-teens. So, they’re young,” Lennick said. “So, I guess, err on the side of caution. I would tell people while we sort through this and we have no one in custody, be cautious of the events you’re at and the crowd it draws.”

According to Lennick, it is still unknown whether the victim and the gang of youths were connected in any way or if it was a random incident. They are currently looking for other parties involved and witnesses to talk with on the incident.

For added security, he said that no police had been hired to operate at the carnival.

“Kids that aren’t being supervised, access to firearms, then they’re all getting together and it’s not necessarily the carnival’s fault, but it created an event that brought all of these individuals together,” he said.