Family feared past behavior of active shooter killed in Wallace sheriff’s office, records show

Minutes before an active shooter barricaded himself in a North Idaho sheriff’s office lobby, two women took note of an older man with a long, white beard walking down the street with a gun strapped to his chest and commenting he wanted to kill cops. As they walked along Bank Street in downtown Wallace on Dec. 26, they hoped to duck into the restroom in the Shoshone County Sheriff’s Office. The same man muttering he wanted to kill police appeared at the sheriff’s office, and he was pointing the weapon right at the women. They tried to flee as bullets hit their legs.

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Scoop News DeskNorth Idaho · Published Tuesday, September 15, 2026 at 5:47 PM UTCUpdated Tuesday, September 15, 2026 at 9:00 PM UTC

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Officers eventually shot and killed the shooter, later identified as 77-year-old Mullan resident John Drake, a Vietnam War veteran with severe complex post-traumatic stress disorder, according to police reports obtained by The Spokesman-Review. Eddy later told reporters that he didn’t know Drake’s motive, and didn’t know if his office “ever will.” He entered the military in 1967 and was honorably discharged in 1970.