WEST FARGO — An investigation into the fatal shooting of a young parishioner at Prairie Heights Community Church in West Fargo has entered its third week and is still ongoing, police said, with no new information released.

The Cass County District Attorney’s Office has not yet received the incident report from the West Fargo Police Department, and so far police have not recommended any charges.

In a brief statement released two days after the shooting, police said Austin Strom, a 25-year-old member of the Prairie Heights church, attempted to enter the church and committed an aggravated assault on another church member, Kent Hodges, 66, before a third man, Don Barron Jr., 53, intervened and fatally shot Strom with a handgun just before 8 a.m. Saturday, Aug. 17, in the church parking lot.

Contributed by Robin Strom

Red River Regional Dispatch records show that several 911 calls came in that morning from the 300 block of East 32nd Avenue in West Fargo, in the Prairie Heights Church neighborhood. The first calls came in at 7:44 a.m. for reports of a fight. A second group of calls came in at 7:48 a.m. when reports of a fight involving a gunshot were made at that location.

Prairie Heights Executive Director Doug Peters told the Forum the church has turned over all of its video surveillance to investigators, but declined to say whether the incident was caught on camera.

Barron, who lives in Moorhead, could not be reached for comment, but West Fargo High School officials sent a note to families and staff acknowledging that Barron is employed as a driver’s education teacher at the school and that, after discussions with West Fargo police, he would not be placed on leave following the shooting.

Hodges initially agreed to give an interview to the Forum about his involvement in the fight, but declined to comment at this time. Hodges said he has been diagnosed with aphasia, a disorder that impairs a person’s ability to communicate, including understanding spoken and written language. Aphasia typically occurs after a stroke or head injury, according to the Mayo Clinic.

Fargo attorney and former police officer Mark Friese told the Forum that the lengthy investigation is not uncommon in cases like this because, if prosecutors were to bring charges, they would have the burden of refuting any claims Barron may have made that he believed he was in imminent danger and that the use of deadly force against Strom was necessary.

Matt Henson/WDAY

“What provoked the initial altercation (between Strom and Hodges) is relevant, but the analysis by the police and the prosecution will be Mr. Barron’s state of mind at the time he made the decision to use deadly force. What did he see? What did he know? Did he believe that he or Mr. Hodges were in imminent danger of death or serious bodily harm? If Mr. Barron knew that Mr. Hodges also had some inability to process things, that would likely warrant a higher level of intervention,” Friese said.

“If he’s just driving by and he sees a 66-year-old man getting beaten up, he has no legal obligation to intervene, but he almost has a moral obligation in those circumstances. With the distorting effects of hindsight, we could say, ‘Well, maybe he should have called the police, maybe he should have gotten help, maybe he should have handled the situation differently,’ but that’s not the matrix through which you analyze the situation. The question is, would a reasonable person in those circumstances have taken the actions he did?” Friese said.

Strom’s mother said her son was sleeping in his car or outside the church the night before the fight. It’s unclear why Hodges or Barron were in Prairie Heights early Saturday morning. Church officials said the church was on lockdown at the time of the shooting.

The initial report from West Fargo police indicated the three men did not know each other before. Ensuring that Barron had no connection to Strom that might not be obvious, or that there was no interaction between the men before the morning of the incident, could take investigators a long time, as would obtaining the results of Strom’s toxicology tests and autopsy, Friese said.

The way police described Strom’s physical assault on Hodges in their report is significant, he said.

“The scenario described in this press release suggests that the use of force was reasonable and lawful,” Friese said. “(Strom) had just committed an aggravated assault on a victim. There are three levels of assault in North Dakota: simple assault, assault and aggravated assault. Only aggravated assault is a misdemeanor.”

The press release states that Hodges was taken to hospital with serious injuries following the attack.

“North Dakota law is clear. A person is justified in using force against another person in order to defend someone else, if the person being defended would have been justified in defending himself, and the person defending himself has not, by provocation or otherwise, forfeited his right to self-defense,” Friese said.