A 50-year-old Bellevue woman has been charged with aggravated assault, a felony, for allegedly threatening her son in September with a loaded revolver.
Lynda Kay Barbee has also been charged in Blaine County Magistrate Court with three misdemeanors, a single count of exhibition of a deadly weapon and two counts of unlawful discharge of a firearm within city limits.
The charges against Barbee date back to Sept. 16 when about a dozen local police units responded to a report of a shooting early that morning at a home on Tendoy Street in northwest Bellevue. Police surrounded the home for about two and a half hours before entering it and taking Barbee into custody at about 8 a.m.
She was initially taken into protective custody for a mental evaluation, but was arrested the following day in Bonneville County after "a second examination was negative," former Bellevue Marshal Ron Taylor wrote in a probable cause affidavit filed with the court.
Taylor further alleged in the affidavit that Barbee fired two shots in the home, the first in the living room and the second later in the bathroom. She also allegedly pointed the gun at her own head and threatened to shoot herself and waved the gun in the face of her son.
A criminal complaint filed against Barbee accuses her of "shaking a gun at his face, which created a well-founded fear in Michael Barbee that such violence was imminent."
Barbee was formally charged with the crimes on Sept. 31 in magistrate court.
Court records state that Barbee lives with her mother and that Michael Barbee was sleeping on the couch the evening of the incident.
Barbee is now free on $15,000 bond. A no-contact order specifies that she is not to be within 300 feet of her son.
Terry Smith: tsmith@mtexpress.com
