A Haines Borough police officer who allegedly drew his gun on a resident last week said he was responding to coming around a house and seeing a pistol “stick straight out and fire.”
Officer Brayton Long and Alaska State Trooper Drew Neason responded at 4:30 p.m. April 26 to a 911 call reporting gunshots at 1266 Small Tracts Road, a home near the recycling center. Discharging a firearm in the townsite is prohibited by borough law.
Homeowner Dave Stickler said this week that Long and Neason were “out of line” for pointing their guns at him and nephew Kory Stickler, 21. The Sticklers said Kory had been shooting at a tree on the property.
Alaska State Trooper Sgt. Matthew Hightower said this week he is reviewing the incident and couldn’t comment on the appropriateness of Neason’s actions. Hightower is Neason’s superior.
On arriving at the home, officer Long said he heard several rounds fired.
Long said he repeatedly knocked on the door in an attempt to make contact, but no one answered. As he walked around the house to find someone, Long said he saw a person’s arm, a pistol in hand, “stick straight out and fire.”
Long said he drew his weapon into the “high guard position,” with its muzzle pointed toward the ground.
Kory Stickler said in an interview this week he had been reloading bullets all day, occasionally testing them by shooting into the woods by the house.
“I went out to do it one more time, shot twice, heard yelling, and two cops yelled and ran around the side of the house, yelling to put (the) gun down,” he said.
Stickler said he dropped the gun, a .44 magnum, immediately, and Long “pulled me out into the yard by my hood (of my sweatshirt) and pushed me to my knees. He said I was resisting, but I wasn’t. I was doing everything he told me to do.”
Long said he was conducting a weapons search. “(It’s) standard procedure to secure an area or person before the situation can escalate,” he said.
According to Kory Stickler, David Stickler then came out of the house, causing Neason to point a 12-gauge shotgun at him. David Stickler said Neason pointed the gun at his head from a distance of eight feet and screamed, “Do you have any weapons? Do you have any weapons?”
Kory Stickler said things calmed down after that.
Long said he explained to the men that discharging a weapon in the townsite is illegal and gave Kory Sticker a verbal warning.
“They said that they didn’t know if I was a threat or not, that’s why they reacted the way they did,” Stickler said. “I think they blew it way out of proportion.”
David Stickler, who said he is “livid” and “irate” about what happened, spoke with Sgt. Hightower, officer Long, Mayor Jan Hill and an attorney after the incident.
Interim chief Josh Dryden said this week there appear to be discrepancies in the accounts of what happened, but that he doesn’t believe Long violated any policy or procedure “as far as I can tell at this point.”
“I’m pretty sure with the training that is involved here in Alaska, nobody is trained to point a gun at someone’s face unless it’s someone you’re going to shoot,” Dryden said.
Dryden acknowledged Long did force Kory Stickler to the ground. “That’s procedure if there’s guns involved. We’re going to take control of the situation,” Dryden said.
Firearms obviously aren’t uncommon in Alaska, but that doesn’t mean police officers can be any less careful about responding to calls where guns are involved, Dryden said.
“There are people in town with violent felonies. We don’t know them. We’re not doing the whole Mayberry thing. We never know who we are going to run across here in town,” Dryden said. “(I tell officers) ‘Don’t let this small town complacency get you hurt or killed. Keep your guard up. You don’t have to be mean or unprofessional, but stay on your toes.’”
Greg Goodman, who worked for the Haines Borough Police Department from 1991 to 2008, including from 1999 to 2008 as chief, said it sounded like the officer and trooper were “completely justified” in drawing their weapons.
“You walk into a case cold like they did, to shots fired, not knowing anything else, you’re naturally going to do that for your own protection,” Goodman said.
In Haines sometimes people expect issues like shooting a gun in the townsite not to be taken seriously because “everybody knows everybody,” but any situation involving firearms is cause for officers to be concerned for their safety, Goodman said.
“If that had happened some place in a bigger metropolitan area, it would be looked at as routine and nobody would bat an eye, except for maybe the people that were involved,” Goodman said.
Don Otis served as state trooper in Haines from 1990 to 2000. Reached at his home in Hobson, Mont., this week, Otis said police typically only draw their guns when they feel threatened.
“You would have to feel threatened, and threatened not necessarily by a gun – it could be a knife – but if a cop feels threatened, he can pull his gun,” Otis said.
Otis said that unless some other factor was involved, he typically wouldn’t respond to a report of gunfire with his gun drawn.
Otis, who served as a trooper in Juneau before being stationed in Haines, said he has pointed his gun at people on the job. “I don’t remember ever having pointed my gun (at a person) in Haines, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t. I don’t remember.”