Man says cops had 'no idea what they're doing' about 'armed teens' that were chasing him

CHALLIS, Idaho — A man accused of causing a police standoff with the Custer County sheriff was exonerated by a jury in April. Now, he's telling his story to the public.

In September 2024, Curtis Caton, 49, was arrested and then held in jail for nearly a year on a $1 million bond for multiple charges, including felony unlawful discharge of a firearm, felony assault with the intent to commit murder, felony malicious injury to property and misdemeanor resisting or obstructing officers.

Caton ended up pleading guilty to the misdemeanor, but after a four-day trial where his lawyers claimed that he was ambushed by a group of teenagers and their parents, the jury found him not guilty on the other charges.

According to an affidavit of probable cause filed by the Custer County Sheriff's Office, on May 11, 2024, at 10 p.m., three teenagers were in a remote area of Custer County known as Bradbury Flat, when they say they witnessed a man, identified as Caton, fire a gun several times in the area and toward them in their truck as they were leaving.

Police said the parents of the teens went to the area but were met with gunfire from Caton into their vehicle. They claimed that the rounds penetrated the interior of the vehicle, nearly striking the occupants.

Caton and his wife, Christa Caton, say this story was "fabricated" from the beginning.

"The Custer County Sheriff's Office fabricated a story from the very beginning and ran with it, because they have no training, no leadership, and they have no idea what they're doing," Christa Caton told EastIdahoNews.com.

The Catons' version of events

On the day of the incident, the couple said they had gone out to the area to practice with a new laser Curtis Caton had bought for one of his guns.

"We took it out, and he target shot a couple rounds, and that is what they heard," she said.

According to Curtis Caton, it was very soon after that that a group of teens drove up to them and pointed guns at them.

"Out of nowhere, these teens, which we didn't even know were teens at the time, these teenagers almost rammed into the front of our truck," he said. "Then they take off, and that's when the chase started."

From there, Curtis Caton said they tried to go home in their vehicle and were chased by the teenagers for 40 minutes until they eventually reached their house.

"They were trying to run us off the road," she said. "We have no idea. I (was) freaking out. I still have nightmares about it."

She said they were not aware that the drivers and occupants in the cars were teenagers, and said things may have been different if they had known.

"We did not know that they were teenagers at this time; all we knew was there were multiple vehicles pursuing us, full of armed occupants trying to run us off the road," she said.

Eventually, the couple said the parents of the teenagers joined in on the chase, which ended at the Catons' home. Police initially said that they arrived after reports of shots fired to "get details about what happened."

"Caton reportedly answered the door wearing body armor and held an AR-15-style rifle, where he told Sheriff Levi Maydole something to the effect of 'this is how it is now," motioning with his hand and referring to his rifle and body armor," court documents said.

Curtis Caton said the deputies did not identify themselves as law enforcement, leading him to believe they were with the group of armed people that had been chasing them home.

"When the police showed up, which we didn't know were police after the shooting at our residence. Four masked, armed men, no badges, no flashing lights, no sirens, no announcement, grab Christa from the inside of our home and put a gun to her head and drag her off into the darkness," Curtis Caton claims. "And that kicked off the whole ridiculous standoff."

Police claim that they rescued Christa Caton and her adult daughter from the home during the standoff. Curtis Caton said they did not need to be rescued.

"There was never a hostage, there was no need for a hostage rescue," he said. "They smashed in the side of our house with one of their tanks, smashed (their daughter's) bedroom window. They supposedly rescued our daughter from our residence, got their tank stuck in our front lawn, and had to have it extricated with another million-dollar toy."

Christa Caton said her daughter was not even aware of the details of the standoff until the next morning.

"(My daughter) was and is still very upset and distraught when it came out that she was supposedly a hostage," she said. "The truth was, she hadn't heard a thing being downstairs in the basement sleeping, until the morning. When she awoke, she looked and noticed she had several missed calls from the sheriff's department. At which time, she ran upstairs and out the door, never even seeing (Curtis), or ever speaking with him, or even knowing where he was in the house."

She was immediately placed into a police vehicle.

As for the claims that Curtis Caton shot at the teens in their truck, Christa Caton said that is wrong.

"Curtis did not shoot the back window. That's another thing that needs to be addressed. There's evidence that the two shots that were fired through the back window came from the cab itself, from the interior," she said. "(An ISP detective) could not duplicate, not could he explain in trial how the back window of (one of the teenager's) truck was shattered, and how two bullets supposedly went into the cab from the outside."

Police said Curtis Caton was eventually taken into custody on May 12, after six hours of negotiation, surrendering peacefully.

During the trial, procedural issues were also brought up, particularly when Custer County prosecutor Justin Oleson was disbarred from practicing law three days into Curtis' jury trial.

On April 2, Oleson was found "to have violated seven of the Idaho Rules of Professional Conduct by the Idaho Supreme Court," according to documents filed.

However, Oleson was given 14 days to "wind up and complete on behalf of any client, all matters pending," including the Caton trial.

"The trial against Curtis was very unprecedented in the history of Idaho judicial cases," Christa Caton said. "We have a prosecutor that's been disbarred due to unethical behavior. You can draw a conclusion that he most likely was doing the same unethical practices in our case. … Just because Curtis was exonerated, it should still be investigated."

The Catons said they are still struggling with the aftermath of a year in jail, financial debt from the case, and the emotional toll of the jury trial.

"My wife and I were viciously assaulted by these teenagers and their parents," he said. "We're struggling to survive, spent a year in jail wrongfully, and we are over $200,000 in debt because of this."

According to the couple, they believe the story had been fabricated because they were not locals. The couple had recently moved to the area from northern Idaho. Christa Caton is originally from Northern California, and he is from Kansas.

"Curtis and I, we're both disabled veterans, and we served our countries. We are both professionals. We both have degrees. We both have worked very hard our entire lives to get where we're at," she said. "We moved here because it's a nice, quiet community … and because we're not known in the community is why we've been ostracized and persecuted."

Sheriff's office's response

EastIdahoNews.com reached out to Custer County Sheriff Levi Maydole for a comment on the results of the case.

Maydole declined to comment on behalf of his office and referred us to one of the investigators on the case, deputy Dave Walls.

"It was a strange confluence of events," Walls said. "The jury heard the case and made their decision, and that's why we have juries."

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