Tim Leeds Havre Daily News tleeds@havredailynews.com
The Havre mayor received a nighttime phone call he interpreted as a death threat, although it appears to have been a prank call by people reenacting a scene from a horror movie. Mayor Bob Rice said that at 2:45 a. m. on Dec. 3, he was awakened by a telephone call in which the caller called him by his first name. After that, he said, the caller mumbled for some time, and Rice is not sure what he was told, although it sounded like instructions. The call concluded with, “or you’re a dead man,” he said. After Rice and the Havre Police Department received information on the call from Rice’s cellular phone service company, the police arrested Andrew McKnight of Havre, 19, on a charge of threats in official and political matters. McKnight, who bonded out of jail, declined to comment on the issue Wednesday. No charges had been filed in state District Court as of this morning. Gabe Matosich, chief in charge of operations at the Havre Police Department, said no other arrests have been made, but the investigation is still pending. “There is still some work to do,” Matosich said. Rice said McKnight came and apologized to him Tuesday, saying he and a group of friends were re-enacting a scene from the movie “Saw,” a 2004 horror and suspense film which has already spawned four sequels with a fifth scheduled to be released next year. In “Saw,” a serial killer kidnaps people and forces them to play games with each other’s lives, with only one survivor in the first episode. Rice said he originally went back to bed after receiving the call, thinking it must have simply been a dream. When he checked his cell phone the next morning, it showed a call with the callEr information restricted at that time. Rice said that after he notified the Havre police, he called his cell phone company, which gave him information about the caller and sent that information to the police. Rice said Wednesday he thinks it was just a prank, a bunch of kids partying. “It’s unfortunate,” Rice said. “Kids make stupid mistakes.” He said he was not pleased it took so long for McKnight to come and apologize, letting the mayor stew for several days. “I said why couldn't they have come in the next day and let me know it was a joke or whatever,” he said.
