Standinghorn sentenced in 2025 gang-related shooting
Geronimo Standinghorn, 14, was sentenced in district court on Aug. 27 after he pleaded guilty to shooting another teenager last fall near the McDonald’s and Phoenix Apartments on 10th Avenue South.
Standinghorn was 13 at the time and was initially charged with attempted deliberate homicide.
The juvenile signed a plea agreement last week and entered a plea of true before Judge Elizabeth Best on Aug. 20.
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Under the agreement, the prosecution recommended that Standinghorn be committed to Pine Hills, the Montana Department of Corrections’ juvenile facility, until he’s 18.
The case is under extended jurisdiction, and the agreement recommended that Standinghorn be on probation until he’s 21.
The defense agreed with the recommendation, and Best followed the plea agreement in her sentencing.
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During the Aug. 27 hearing, Preston Rammell, the deputy county attorney prosecuting the case, said he contacted the victim, who did not want to speak during sentencing.
Standinghorn’s attorney called Crystal Moreno, his stepmom.
She said she did what she could while he was living with her and thanked the court for the opportunity the sentence in the plea agreement gives him to integrate back into the community after his time at Pine Hills, “to have a chance at life. I’m pretty sure he understands the opportunity that’s been given to him.”
Best said that Standinghorn had grown physically during the time the case was in her court and that she sensed he’d grown mentally and emotionally.
“I don’t think you’ve had any advantage throughout your life. That doesn’t mean it gives you carte blanche, doesn’t mean it gives you license to disobey the law,” Best said, and that she hoped his time at Pine Hills would give him some adult guardrails and time to learn some skills.
“I can see a good person here,” she said. “I am dismayed by people of all ages, frankly, who are using guns to solve problems.”
Best asked Standinghorn if he had learned the permanent damage guns can cause and the lasting impact on others, even if he doesn’t like someone, to which Standinghorn said yes.
She said the brains of teenagers aren’t yet fully developed and they tend to act before thinking of consequences.
Best asked Standinghorn to “think before you respond. You have had an unfair start here, but that doesn’t mean it’s the end; you are still very young; you have a world of opportunity before you.”
She said she’d read things about him that indicate he’s a kind and compassionate person and that she wouldn’t judge him by anything but what he does from this point on.
In February, Best ruled that Standinghorn would be tried as a juvenile during a transfer hearing, when the court considered whether to try the case in adult court due to the severity of the charge.
In May, the attempted deliberate homicide charge was amended to a felony count of assault with a weapon. Standinghorn was also charged with a felony count of evidence tampering and a misdemeanor count of assault.
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County Attorney Josh Racki told The Electric earlier this year that his office amended the charge for trial purposes since the assault with a weapon charge carried the maximum potential sentence the court could impose on Standinghorn in youth court without the prosecution having to prove the additional elements of attempted homicide.
The shooting case was scheduled to go to trial Sept. 1.
Over the last few months, Best and the lawyers have spent hours deliberating jury instructions, admissible evidence and witnesses, a justifiable use of force defense and how to handle the prosecution’s gang enhancement for the charge, which has never before been tried in Cascade County, to Racki’s knowledge.
Appearing in the courtroom before Best on Aug. 20, Standinghorn said he understood that by changing his plea to true, he was waiving his right to a trial.
In youth court, a true is effectively the same as a guilty plea.
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The prosecution is dismissing the other charges and some from his other cases in exchange for the plea.
During the hearing, Preston Rammell, the deputy county attorney prosecuting the case, asked Standinghorn if he got into an altercation with the victim, another teenage boy, at McDonald’s on Nov. 3, 2025.
Standinghorn said yes.
Rammell asked if the victim had chased after him from McDonald’s.
Standinghorn said yes.
Rammell asked if he had a gun and shot at the victim during the chase.
Standinghorn said yes.
Rammell asked if he agreed that a gun is a weapon and that he caused bodily injury to the victim.
Standinghorn said yes.
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Best said Pine Hills offers services that could be beneficial to Standinghorn “so you can be launched a full-fledged citizen that can contribute” to the community.
In June, Standinghorn was arrested for assaulting his father on Father’s Day while out on a $50,000 bond in the shooting case.
He’s been held in the Cascade County Juvenile Detention Center since.
Standinghorn’s father, Travis, was recently involved in a downtown altercation during which the man he was walking with stabbed another man, who later died of his injuries.
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Standinghorn was in Judge John Parker’s court on March 3 for several pending misdemeanor charges, including a criminal endangerment charge related to a shooting near Papa Johns about 18 months ago, according to the Cascade County Attorney’s Office.
Standinghorn was about a month shy of his 14th birthday at the time of the Nov. 3 shooting.
He was arrested for disorderly conduct in October 2025, and in a JDC questionnaire, claimed to be a “regular member” of a specific local gang that had about 10 members. He also has tattoos with known gang references, according to charging documents.
A 12-year-old was also charged with a count of tampering with evidence in the shooting. He was sentenced to three years in Pine Hills Correctional Facility, where he is currently, on that charge and a previous case, according to the Cascade County Attorney’s Office.
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Standinghorn appeared in Best’s court for a Feb. 26 transfer hearing during which she said she was “concerned about community safety with the level of violence here,” and understood from a report submitted to the court that Standinghorn would likely need some treatment and/or behavioral counseling.
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Standinghorn’s former defense attorney, van der Hagen, hired psychologist Dr. Donna Zook to evaluate the boy for the Feb. 26 hearing.
Zook said Standinghorn had reactive attachment disorder due to inadequate parenting, including a mother who had postpartum depression, wanted to kill him and abandoned him. She said his father had struggled with drug addiction.
Zook said that his behavior was not acceptable or safe for the community, but that he had the capacity for empathy and “he is not psychopathic.”
Since he showed empathy toward innocent people, Zook said she believed he was treatable and his behavior could be changed.
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Standinghorn hadn’t had the opportunity to understand and practice social skills, displaying impulsive, disorganized behavior, she said.
Best asked if that was typical of more children his age, and Zook said his behavioral development wasn’t at the level of a typical 14-year-old who would have better perception and understanding of social rules and regulations.
She said she’d have concerns about Standinghorn being tried in adult court with the possibility of incarceration with adult inmates.
“If it doesn’t kill him, literally, it’s going to turn him into a monster,” Zook said.
She recommended the case be transferred to youth court and that Standinghorn be treated for his attachment disorder.
Matt Darlington, a juvenile probation officer, said he began supervising Standinghorn in early 2025 on a shoplifting charge, then again on a since-dismissed vehicle theft and other charges that were pending.
The boy had very little parental supervision, little scholastic achievement and was basically raising himself, he said.
Darlington said he had trouble locating Standinghorn’s father over the last year and believed the case should be tried in youth court, where the boy had the best access to services and a chance to improve.
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Rammell, the Cascade County deputy attorney prosecuting the case, said Standinghorn’s juvenile friends were gang-affiliated and it was likely the concerning behaviors would continue without intervention.
Speaking to Standinghorn during the Feb. 26 hearing, Best said the behavior of juveniles roaming the community with guns was “horrifying.”
Best said that in the long term, the court had to consider community protection, the nature of the offense and also the nature of the person, who in this case is “frankly still a young kid.”
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She said to Standinghorn that she was holding him to a standard of getting better.
Best said that in the big picture, the community would be better served by Standinghorn going through youth court, rather than putting him in a situation where he wouldn’t get treatment and more likely warehousing him in the adult system with inmates who have higher criminal skills and then releasing him back into the community.
An updated 36-page charging document detailed more of the incident, notably the witness statement that the 17-year-old had stabbed Standinghorn was unsubstantiated and prosecutors wrote that it was unknown why the witness claimed she saw the victim with a knife or if he did in fact, have a knife. No other knives were located at the scene or on the victim and no other witness claimed to have seen him with a knife.
On Nov. 3, officers responded around 1:50 p.m. to the area of the McDonald’s on 10th Avenue South for reports of a fight, followed by additional information that someone heard a gunshot and someone had walked into McDonald’s with a gunshot wound, saying it had happened in the parking lot.
The 17-year-old survived, according to the Cascade County Attorney’s Office.
Medical staff at the Benefis Health System Emergency Department told investigators that the bullet narrowly missed his heart and later determined it had also narrowly missed his spine and collapsed one of his lungs.
Standinghorn was located with another known juvenile gang member, who is 16 and was sentenced to Pine Hills, the Montana Department of Corrections’ juvenile facility, in November. The boys were with two females.
The group matched the description of those involved in the McDonald’s incident and the one sentenced to Pine Hills had blood on him and a laceration on his right thumb. He initially claimed to have cut himself on a fence, but later said in an interview that he and two other juveniles, including Standinghorn, had gone to McDonald’s to confront the victim over an incident of him punching one of the boys a few weeks prior, according to charging documents.
Cascade County Attorney Josh Racki told The Electric last winter that no charges were filed in relation to that incident and he didn’t believe it had been reported to law enforcement.
The 16-year-old later told investigators that he had punched the victim in the back of the head and that’s how he cut his hand. The punch led to an altercation between the victim and the group, which fled, and the victim pursued with bear spray, according to charging documents.
He told investigators that as they were fleeing, he heard a gunshot and when he met up with the others, Standinghorn had a gun that he tossed before being contacted by police, according to charging documents.
The 16-year-old told investigators that Standinghorn said, “I shot him, but not sure if I hit him because he sprayed me,” referring to the bear spray, according to court documents.
During an interview, investigators noted that Standinghorn’s clothing was saturated with what appeared to be bear spray and he gave inconsistent statements, initially claiming he was sprayed by a random person, but eventually admitted to being sprayed by the victim, according to charging documents.
He denied shooting the victim or having a firearm.
One of the females told investigators that she saw Standinghorn, her boyfriend, pull a gun from his waistband and point it at the victim, who was spraying bear spray, according to charging documents.
She said the two rounded a building corner and she heard a gunshot.
Detectives reviewed the security footage from McDonald’s, which showed, according to court documents:
- Standinghorn and three females inside McDonald’s when the victim walks in and begins ordering food
- the group appears to notice the victim and Standinghorn appears to make a phone call
- the group looks out the window as if watching for someone
- on the outside cameras, six males, including at least three known juvenile gang members, are seen approaching from an apartment at the Phoenix
- on approach, the 12-year-old charged in the incident appears to be holding something bulky in his sweatshirt pocket, which investigators wrote was possibly a gun based on his history of carrying concealed weapons
- four of the males, including the two charged in the incident, go into the bathroom
- when they emerge, the victim is handing cash to a cashier and the 16-year-old sentenced to Pine Hills punches him in the face, appearing to make contact with the victim’s mouth, causing the cut to his right thumb
- the victim turns around and is attacked by the boys who continue to punch him inside the McDonald’s
- the victim fights back and the fight moves outside, with the six males eventually fleeing toward the Phoenix Apartments, but fail to gain access to an apartment
- the victim gets in his vehicle and drives toward the Phoenix Apartments, exits and follows the group southbound along the 1800 block of 9th Avenue South
- as the group is running, Standinghorn appears to be closest to the victim and reaching in a backwards manner consistent with pointing a gun
- the victim appears to flinch while Standinghorn is pointing at him and the group rounds a corner going east along the south portion of a building
- the males go in different directions, with the victim and Standinghorn going out of sight behind a vehicle
- seconds later, the victim emerges walking westbound along the building holding his chest, then walks into the McDonald’s and can be seen holding his chest and bleeding from the right side of his lip
Detectives also viewed surveillance footage from a residence behind the Phoenix Apartments that shows the same events from a different angle.
In this footage, it appears the victim began chasing the males after he exited his vehicle, but never appeared to catch them or make contact, according to court documents.
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As Standinghorn rounds the southeast corner of a building and runs northbound, after the victim is shot, he appears to have something small in his right hand that he puts back in his sweatshirt pocket before running eastbound. The victim never rounds the corner, further supporting “that the person closest to [the victim] at the time he was shot was [Standinghorn],” according to the charging documents.
The victim told investigators that he didn’t know why he was attacked but recognized one of the males as his cousin.
The victim said that he chased the group and sprayed the male closest to him with bear spray as they were running. As they rounded the corner, he said the juvenile turned and pointed a handgun at him from 1.5 to 2 feet away, shot him, and continued running, according to court documents.
Detectives examined the victim’s injury and noted that the exit wound on his back was oblong, indicating that the bullet had destabilized before exiting his back, according to court documents.
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On Nov. 4, investigators found a small black handgun behind a piece of tin in a yard in the vicinity of the incident that had one cartridge in the chamber, which contained a full metal jacket copper-plated bullet.
On Nov. 5, detectives returned to the scene and located a bullet defect on a vehicle parked along 18th Street South that was directly west of the south wall of the building, indicating the bullet was fired almost directly west, according to court documents. Detectives noted the bullet impression in the defect was oblong, indicating it was destabilized and based on their training and experience, that meant it likely struck another surface before hitting the vehicle.
Detectives located a fired bullet in the roadway just below the vehicle that was deformed along its side, which was a full metal jacket with copper plating, consistent with the recovered handgun.
Based on the angle of the shot and positioning of the boys involved, “the only plausible explanation” is that Standinghorn fired the shot that struck the victim, according to court documents.
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Standinghorn allegedly coordinated the attack, participated by punching the victim multiple times and when the victim approached with “non-lethal” bear spray, he shot the victim at close range.
“The shot was not lethal, but narrowly avoided life-ending injury. Shooting at an unarmed (bear spray is not a weapon) person from close range and aiming at the chest is an action that has a high likelihood of causing death to another human being,” according to court documents.
On. Nov. 5, detectives were notified that the victim had received multiple harassing Instagram messages that mock him for being shot and threaten his life, referencing gang activity, according to court documents.
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During their investigation, detectives noted that “there has been no indication at this point that [the victim] has been involved in gang activity,” based on information from school resource officers, Great Falls Police officers heavily involved in tracking gang activity, interviews with juveniles, and from the victim himself, according to court documents.
The victim has been stabbed, shot and threatened with a firearm in previous cases, involving known gang members, making it “apparent that [the gang members] have been targeting [the victim] for some time,” according to court documents.
