Alaska News

Troopers make four arrests for Valley mayhem including drugs, alcohol, gunfire, and car in creek

Alaska State Troopers made four arrests Friday and Saturday near Bodenburg Butte for two separate incidents that involved a submerged station wagon, gunfire and consumption of drugs and alcohol.

The arrests took place off the Old Glenn Highway at the Knik River Public Use Area, in an area that trooper Joel Miner said has historically been a "big party location.

"People come out and drink, shoot," Miner said in a phone interview Saturday. "We're trying to change that."

The first two arrests came at about 2 p.m. Friday, when troopers said they found a drunken Anchorage man firing a handgun in an area off-limits to shooting.

The man, 27-year-old Russell Haube of Anchorage, was also on drugs, said Miner, who heard the shots and investigated.

"He admitted to using marijuana, alcohol, Xanax and crystal methamphetamine — all four," Miner said. "Kind of a cocktail, I guess."

Miner said Haube told him it was an accident that the gun went off.

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"His story was that he was checking to make sure it wasn't loaded," Miner said. "But just to be safe, he did point it at the river instead of elsewhere."

Troopers also arrested Haube's girlfriend, Dyane Gray, 24.

Gray gave a false name and already had an arrest warrant for driving with her license suspended, troopers said in an online dispatch. And she also had crystal methamphetamine and Xanax pills without a prescription, the dispatch said.

Haube and Gray were arrested and taken to Mat-Su Pretrial Facility in Palmer, with $10,000 bail set for each of them, according to the dispatch.

Then, troopers said they received another report in the same area early Saturday. This time, it was a Subaru station wagon in Bodenburg Creek.

Officers responded to the report just after midnight and arrested Gwen Cooley, 44, and Michael Cooley, 47, who were with their two children, according to another online dispatch.

The online dispatch only mentioned the station wagon but said both Cooleys were driving under the influence. That was because Gwen Cooley had come to the rescue in another vehicle, said Sgt. Dave Herrell, one of the arresting officers.

"There were actually two cars," Herrell said in a phone interview.

The children were not in any danger, Herrell said -- the creek isn't fast-moving and is less than 3 feet deep.

"The car just died out," he said.

The two Cooleys were taken to Mat-Su Pretrial Facility in Palmer. Gwen Cooley's bail was set at $500 and Michael Cooley's was set at $5,500.

Neither was to be released until sober, the dispatch said.

Their children, Herrell said, were old enough to be released to a responsible adult.

Nathaniel Herz

Anchorage-based independent journalist Nathaniel Herz has been a reporter in Alaska for nearly a decade, with stints at the Anchorage Daily News and Alaska Public Media. Read his newsletter, Northern Journal, at natherz.substack.com

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