Crime & Courts

Troopers say they shot and injured man on the Kenai Peninsula after he pulled a gun

An Alaska State Trooper was about to give a ride to a man who seemed in need of help on a cold night in the Soldotna area.

But after the man pulled out a gun in the back of the trooper vehicle, Alaska State Troopers shot and injured him.

Efforts to reach someone with troopers for more information were unsuccessful Saturday night.

In an online dispatch posted just before 9:30 p.m. Saturday, troopers say this is what happened:

Around 2:45 p.m. Saturday, troopers got a report about a suspicious man on private property walking into the nearby woods. A trooper found him and because of the below freezing temperatures, offered the man a ride home.

The man got into the back of the trooper vehicle and, troopers said, pulled out a handgun. The trooper stopped and got out. The man stayed in the trooper vehicle, gun in hand, troopers said.

Troopers activated their Special Emergency Reaction Team, or SERT, their version of SWAT. Other troopers arrived. They tried to get the man to put his gun down, but he wouldn't, troopers said.

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At 5:06 p.m., he pointed his gun at troopers and an officer or officers fired at him, according to the online description.

The man was injured and taken to Central Peninsula Hospital.

The officer or officers who fired their gun are on 72-hours of administrative leave, as is standard.

Troopers weren't immediately available to answer questions.

[Anchorage police identify man shot and killed by officer]

This comes after two fatal police shootings in Anchorage since November.

Anchorage police shot and killed a man with a gun Wednesday night outside his condominium just south of downtown. The man, identified by police as Charles McBride, had been shooting at his neighbor and was still firing shots when police arrived, Anchorage police said.

In November, a man being sought by police was found in the Muldoon Fred Meyer parking lot. The situation with Thomas Barclay escalated. Officers surrounded his vehicle with theirs and then broke out one of his windows, police said.

But instead of giving up, the man pulled out a handgun and pointed it at officers, police said. Three officers fired their weapons, and Barclay was dead, police said.

Lisa Demer

Lisa Demer was a longtime reporter for the Anchorage Daily News and Alaska Dispatch News. Among her many assignments, she spent three years based in Bethel as the newspaper's western Alaska correspondent. She left the ADN in 2018.

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