Haines Borough police decided not to file charges against an apparently intoxicated woman who fired multiple shots from a revolver into the ground behind her Fourth Avenue residence on Dec. 10.
Police responded to a report of an intoxicated woman shooting off a gun after 1 a.m. Tuesday, Dec. 10. After contacting her, police confiscated weapons from the woman’s residence.
The woman came to the station sober the following day. Officers had a “serious talk” with her and returned the weapons, said interim police chief Simon Ford.
According to Alaska statute, a person commits misconduct involving a weapon in the fourth degree while possessing a firearm “when the person’s physical or mental condition is impaired as a result of the introduction of an intoxicating liquor or a controlled substance into the person’s body.”
When asked why the woman wasn’t charged with weapons misconduct, Ford responded, “When we considered the totality of the circumstances, it seemed the behavior would be corrected without her having to face criminal charges.”
Ford wouldn’t elaborate on the specific “totality of the circumstances.”
“The reference to the totality of the circumstances is just to say that when we looked at all the information available to us as we conducted the investigation, the officers involved decided that the best course of action in this incident was to not arrest. If circumstances had been a little different, that may not have been the case,” Ford said.