Crime & Courts

Man who shot at trooper disabled by stun gun after chase, charges say

An Anchorage man was chased down on foot Sunday by a state trooper and disabled by a shot from the trooper's stun gun after a brief shootout off the Sterling Highway on the Kenai Peninsula.

Timothy Lange, 30, faces charges of first-degree attempted murder, third- and fourth-degree assault, weapons misconduct, reckless endangerment and resisting arrest.

The Alaska State Troopers followed procedure in releasing the name of the trooper involved in the shooting 72 hours after it happened. Trooper Kevin Gill, who wasn't identified in the charges against Lange, is an officer with the Soldotna Patrol Unit and has been with the force for less than a year.

Trooper investigator Mark Pearson's account of the shooting says that late Sunday afternoon, someone reported a "suspicious male with a handgun standing alongside the Sterling Highway near Mile 55 outside of Cooper Landing."

Gill spotted the man, later identified as Lange, 20 minutes after the call to troopers. He parked his patrol vehicle and attempted to contact Lange. Gill noticed the man was holding a pistol and told him to put it down, according to the charges.

"Lange did not comply with the trooper's commands and then shot at the trooper with a .38-caliber pistol," according to the charges. Gill reportedly returned fire but neither man was hit.

Lange put the pistol on the ground and fled on foot. Gill chased him down and successfully deployed his Taser on Lange, according to the charges.

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After Lange was arrested, as he was being transferred from one patrol vehicle to another, he allegedly grabbed trooper Sgt. John Brown's belt near where a baton and radio were secured.

"Sgt. Brown and another trooper engaged in a physical struggle with Lange to get him from (the) duty belt, which resulted in them falling to the ground," according to the charges. The investigator who wrote the affidavit alleges Lange was trying to harm the troopers or himself.

The charges do not indicate whether Lange was intoxicated or under the influence of drugs at the time of the shooting or subsequent scuffle with troopers.

Lange was taken to Wildwood Correctional Center in Kenai; troopers later searched a law enforcement database and discovered he is a convicted felon for possessing controlled substances and misdemeanor escape.

Troopers lost two of their own in May when a 20-year-old man from the village of Tanana shot and killed the officers while they attempted to arrest his father. About a week later, an Ambler man was charged with attempted murder for responding to a village police officer's door knock with gunfire.

Reach Jerzy Shedlock at jerzy@alaskadispatch.com.

By JERZY SHEDLOCK

jerzy@alaskadispatch.com

Jerzy Shedlock

Jerzy Shedlock is a former reporter for Alaska Dispatch News. He left the ADN in 2017.

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