Over 35 seasons working as a ranger in Glacier National Park, Kim Peach, 67, recalls only two incidents in which he responded to a report of a gun being fired — and both became his most memorable days on the job.
So last year, when he spotted an advertisement featuring a smiling Tim Sheehy running for Senate, Peach immediately recognized the ex-Navy SEAL’s face, he said. It was the same man who had told him years earlier that he had accidentally shot himself in the right arm after his gun dropped to the ground while he said he was loading up gear after a hike.
Last spring, Peach shared his account of ticketing Sheehy $525 for discharging a weapon in Glacier National Park in Oct. of 2015 with The Washington Post — an account that was backed up by U.S. District Court and national park documents from the incident. The Post allowed him to speak on the condition of anonymity at the time because he feared political retaliation. But Laura Loomer and other conservative pundits quickly shared his identity online after the story published, leading to harassment, Peach said.
Now, angry at what he sees as Sheehy’s refusal to own up to the truth, Peach is speaking on the record to lend weight to his account of what happened 9 years ago. The Montana candidate, who looks poised to defeat Democratic incumbent Sen. Jon Tester and likely help flip the Senate to Republican control next year, has said he has a bullet lodged in his right arm from his time serving in Afghanistan. When asked earlier this year about the Glacier National Park incident, Sheehy said he lied to the ranger when he told him he had a fresh gunshot wound that day, in order to prevent the authorities from finding out about a potential friendly fire incident from 2012, which he feared could spark a military investigation.
Peach finds that hard to believe. “The truth isn’t complicated,” he said.
Sheehy campaign spokeswoman Katie Martin dismissed Peach as a partisan activist, pointing out that he attacks former president Donald Trump in one of his photos on Facebook. (Peach, a Democrat, is wearing a “Make Lying Wrong Again” hat in the photo.)
“Anyone trying to take away from the fact that Tim Sheehy signed up for war as a young man and spent most of his 20s in some of the most dangerous places in the world is either a partisan hack, a journalist with an agenda, or outright a disgusting person,’ Martin said.
“Tim has been and will continue to be a humble servant of our great nation, our veterans, and the men and women he admirably served with,” she continued. ‘He got into this race to put our country first and he won’t ever let any of this slander stop him from fighting every day as Montana’s next U.S. Senator.”
That October day in 2015 took an unexpected turn when Peach got a call on his radio directing him to the parking lot of Logan Pass, a popular Glacier National Park destination, after a dispatcher received a report that someone had accidentally shot himself there. The dispatcher later directed Peach to a hospital instead, saying the victim was now there, according to the ranger’s memory and his written report at the time. Sheehy, then a young businessman on a hike with his family, told Peach at the hospital he had accidentally shot himself with his Colt .45 revolver after it fell off a pile of gear in the back of his vehicle and misfired.
The doctor who treated his wound decided to leave the bullet in his right arm, Sheehy told Peach, and Sheehy seemed relieved no one else had been hurt. “I remember Sheehy obviously being embarrassed by the situation but at the same time thankful that it wasn’t worse,” Peach said.
His story that day seemed eminently believable to Peach. The only other incident where a gun fired in the park that he responded to involved someone accidentally firing a bullet into his own leg. In the Sheehy case, Peach said he confiscated and examined the gun in the parking lot of the hospital and saw a spent bullet casing in the cylinder, indicating the revolver had been fired. He returned the weapon after Sheehy paid the fine. In April, the Sheehy campaign did not respond to the ranger’s contention that he inspected the weapon or saw a missing bullet, but noted Peach did not mention a missing bullet in his report from the time. His lawyer called the ranger’s more recent recollections “a fabrication.”
In a statement Sheehy wrote in 2015 as part of the investigation into the gunshot, he wrote that he was “grateful no other persons or property were damaged” in the incident.
But in April, Sheehy told The Post that he sought medical attention that day because he fell during a hike and feared he had dislodged a bullet in his arm from Afghanistan that he had never reported to his superiors, for fear of sparking an investigation into its origins. He said hospital staff reported the gunshot wound to the local authorities, even though it was not fresh. Then, Sheehy said, he lied to Peach when the ranger came to investigate and said he had accidentally shot himself to avoid potentially triggering a military investigation into his former unit.
Sheehy, who received a Purple Heart and Bronze Star with valor during his service for actions unrelated to the gunshot wound, said in April that he never reported the 2012 gunshot injury and believes the bullet may have been the result of friendly fire during a night mission.
Sheehy’s lawyer argued then that the weapon he was carrying in 2015, a Colt .45 long, could not misfire when dropped. A ballistics expert consulted by The Post said it would be very unlikely for the gun to misfire.
His campaign initially said in the spring that Sheehy was seeking hospital records from 2015 to verify his account, but later ignored questions from The Post about whether he had obtained those records or would release them. In May, Sheehy told Montana Public radio that it’s “insulting and ridiculous” that he would need to provide medical records from the incident after “serving my country and being wounded overseas.”
In April, a former teammate recalled Sheehy saying he was struck by a ricochet bullet while they were serving together in 2012. That person spoke on the condition of anonymity because he is a military reservist and said he was not authorized to talk to the media. The Sheehy campaign put him in touch with The Post. Other service members who served with Sheehy in Afghanistan either declined to comment or could not recall him discussing a gunshot wound.
Sheehy’s forceful denial that a gun ever went off in Glacier National Park has angered Peach, who feels that the candidate has muddied the waters by saying he lied to him in 2015. Peach — who is also a veteran, although not a combat veteran — also does not agree with the way Sheehy has suggested reporting on the incident is out of bounds.
“He said that questioning his military service was ‘disgusting,’” Peach said. “What is disgusting is saying a wound from a negligent, accidental firearm discharge is a wound received in combat.”
The ranger, a Democrat, said he hopes he would come forward with his story no matter what political party Sheehy belonged to. “I have no personal vendetta against Tim Sheehy. But when a person makes a statement that’s not true somebody has to call them on it,” he said.
Peach pointed out that Democratic vice-presidential candidate Tim Walz has clarified that he “misspoke” when he’s said in the past that he had carried “weapons of war” while at war during his time in the service, though he did not serve in combat. “Tim Sheehy should do the same,” he said.
Peach started out on the park’s fire crew in 1986, after studying natural resource conservation at a university in Minnesota, and then moved into wildlife management. He went to the police academy in the late 1990s and became a law enforcement ranger.
At the time of their encounter, Peach felt a lot of sympathy for Sheehy as a fellow veteran who quickly took responsibility for the incident. “I just thought they’re a young couple with two kids who had an unfortunate accident,” he recalled of Sheehy and his wife, Carmen.
But now, his dismay has grown as he questions Sheehy’s account of what happened, and as the candidate looks increasingly likely to become a U.S. senator.
“He’s tough enough to keep a bullet in him for two or three years and then slips and falls, bumps his elbow and asks to go to the emergency room?” Peach asked. “His story just has so many holes.”
