First published 27 December 2025. Rewritten on 13 October 2026 from reports by CNN, CBS affiliate CBS2 and other outlets.
A small town in northern Idaho made the news on Friday 26 December 2025 after a man opened fire at the Shoshone County Sheriff’s Office in Wallace. Three people were hurt, none of them seriously, and the gunman died after a standoff with officers.
What happened
Police were called to reports of shots fired at around 2:30 pm. According to the sheriff, William Eddy, the gunman first fired outside the building, hitting a neighbouring hardware store and injuring people nearby, then walked into the lobby of the sheriff’s office, kept shooting and barricaded himself inside. Officers from several agencies surrounded the building, a SWAT team was deployed, and Mineral County, across the state line in Montana, sent reinforcements and asked people to stay out of downtown.
The standoff lasted more than an hour. In what the sheriff described as an officer-involved shooting, the suspect was shot and pronounced dead at about 4:15 pm.
The injured
Sheriff Eddy said the three people who were shot had minor injuries: two women who were sitting in a pickup truck were hit in the leg, and an officer was struck in the ear. Different outlets described that last victim as a deputy and as an officer from nearby Kellogg, so we have kept to the general description. The courthouse, sheriff’s office and county jail share one building in Wallace, which is why the incident was widely described as a courthouse shooting.
Who the suspect was
The sheriff’s office later identified the suspect as John Drake, 77, and said he was the only shooter. Reports we reviewed did not give a motive. The Idaho State Police and the FBI helped at the scene, and the investigation was continuing when these reports were published.
Why a small-town story travelled so far
Few places expect an armed attack on a sheriff’s office, and the first online reports of an “active shooter” spread fast, which local officials confirmed as accurate. Stories like this are also a reminder to check what early reports claim. Details changed as the day went on, from the number of victims’ roles to the identity of the shooter, and that is normal. If you saw a version of this report elsewhere that gave a different account of the injuries, the sheriff’s briefing is the best guide.
