A borough assembly member followed another across a parking lot shouting obscenities after a meeting that laid bare a conflict with the acting police chief over a moose he killed in December.
The dispute between Craig Loomis and chief Michael Fullerton has ballooned, drawing in multiple state agencies, the union that represents Haines police officers, community members, other assembly members and the mayor.
Loomis and Fullerton have not publicly agreed on much beyond that Fullerton shot an injured moose Dec. 17 near the airport. Loomis – who lives nearby – was out walking his dog and arrived at the scene.
Beyond that, the two differ about how many shots were fired, how they interacted when Loomis arrived to find a bleeding, but still breathing, moose on the ground – and who is responsible for critical social media posts about the incident.

The shooting
In a written statement and later recorded interview, Fullerton laid out his timeline of the shooting, which included him receiving a call about 11:30 a.m. in regards to a badly injured moose.
He passed the report on to Alaska Department of Fish and Game and they told him to consult with Alaska Wildlife Troopers. Trooper Colin Nemec told him if one of the local school districts was able to process the moose, then it should be killed.
Fullerton called the Haines Borough School District and when they said they could take it, he decided to shoot it.
This is where his story diverges from assembly member Loomis’s story.
Fullerton said he grabbed his Sako .375 H&H rifle in addition to his shotgun and his service pistol. He says he first shot the moose in the head with the rifle. Fullerton said it looked like a mortal injury, so he went back to his vehicle and left his rifle, grabbed his shotgun and went back to check on the moose. He said that’s when he saw Loomis walking toward him with an unleashed dog.
Fullerton said he noticed the moose was still struggling, so he fired a 12-gauge slug at its head. He then shot it twice more as it continued to struggle. He said the moose collapsed and appeared to have died, so he returned to his patrol car and put up his shotgun.
But Loomis, a longtime hunter, said he doesn’t think that’s what happened. He said he left his house shortly after 1 p.m. to walk his dog and he heard three shotgun blasts.
“I’ve been around so many guns, I can tell from a distance. I know what a handgun sounds like. I know what a shotgun sounds like,” he said. “I’m thinking to myself, ‘what the hell? Somebody shooting rabbits?’”
He said he became curious because it’s illegal to shoot in the townsite. So, he walked toward the sound, but said it took him at least 15 minutes to get there.
“I hear three or four more shots,” he said. “They’re from a pistol. It’s not a shotgun or a high-powered rifle. It’s a pistol.”
Assuming someone had hit a moose, Loomis said he walked up to Fullerton and first asked, “did you find it?”
But then Loomis said when he walked over to the kill site, he was shocked by the amount of blood.
“There was blood everywhere.” And the moose was still alive, Loomis said.
Both agree that Loomis, at some point, yelled at Fullerton to shoot the animal and put it out of its misery.
Fullerton said the situation was complicated because Loomis’ dog was unrestrained and excited about investigating the injured moose. But, he did use his service pistol to shoot two more times. Then, after Loomis left, he shot it once more and confirmed that it was dead. He’s not sure of the timeline but said he called the school at about 1:45 p.m. to update them that the moose was dead and ready to be retrieved.

Haines borough assembly member Craig Loomis. Loomis has been involved in a dispute with the borough’s acting police that started when a moose was killed in mid-December.
The aftermath
Loomis said when he left the scene, he was upset. “It was still alive when I left,” he said.
He believes the moose should have been shot, but it’s the way it happened frustrates him. He said he called the state troopers. Both Loomis and his wife, Sheri Loomis, followed up with Fish & Game.
The disagreement over what Fullerton used to shoot the moose and whether it was the correct and humane choice ballooned: both said at some point Fullerton went to Loomis’s house to show him the weapons he used and Loomis called him a liar.
And, days after the incident Sheri Loomis posted in a private 4,000-member Facebook group “Haines Chatters,” which she moderates.
In a post titled “Moose Massacre at the Haines Airport,” she asked what the community could do to “stop the injuring and slaughtering of bear and moose by our local untrained emergency dispatch police department in the absence of a trained Wildlife Trooper.”
She went on to write an account of the event purported to be from Craig Loomis – detailing his interactions with Fullerton on the day of shooting. The account ends with the statement that local police are not experienced or educated at shooting wild animals.
“The entire situation was not an emergency, it was careless, unsafe, cruel and could have been avoided,” according to the post. “We’ve had a history of unsuccessful bear and moose dispatch attempts by our local police force over the years.”
Union complaint
In a Jan. 14 interview, Fullerton said he recognizes that law enforcement is a highly scrutinized profession and believes it should be that way.
“I make decisions that affect people’s lives,” he said. “It’s really important to recognize that I’m always subject to review, always subject to someone looking critically at what I’ve done and why I’ve done it.”
He said it’s also a profession built on reputation and he felt like he saw his reputation take an unfair hit in real time when someone called his attention to Sheri Loomis’s post.
Fullerton said the crux of his issue with the post is that it intimated that he went out on his own, without authority from either Fish & Game or the wildlife troopers to shoot at the moose.
He was on vacation in Seattle when it posted and he described it as a public shaming event.
“It was not designed as a problem-solving post,” he said. “It was designed to incite passion, and there were pictures of blood everywhere, pictures of the carcass and accusations that were unfounded and untrue. All it did was score imaginary internet points.”
His first instinct was to reply to every comment, he said.
“It consumed me for days because, again, my reputation is important to me,” he said. “Fighting this urge to join (Craig Loomis) on the Facebook battle. But, nothing good will come out of engaging.”
He said the post impacts his personal ability to do his job, and the department as a whole. He said other officers in the department told him they were embarrassed for him and were ashamed.
“It was just guilt by association,” he said.
Fullerton said he believes law enforcement should be open to scrutiny, but the post went beyond appropriate for an assembly member to share about an incident with another borough employee.
Fullerton said the comments, the ongoing criticism he’s gotten from community members – all of it has made him consider whether he wants to continue in the profession.
“One individual makes an observation and they take that opportunity to turn what was, in the most critical analysis of the event … a poorly placed shot. Not, ‘was it safe.’ Not, ‘was it permitted.’ Not, ‘was it authorized.’ Not, ‘was it putting that animal out of its misery.’ Not any of that other stuff, but was ‘did that animal live 10 minutes longer than it should have, had I made a better shot.’ [And] they attempt to destroy your career over that. That’s enough for me to think ‘why am I doing this?’”
So, he filed a grievance with the police union. Fullerton said he felt like Craig Loomis did what was essentially a personnel review publicly and Fullerton wanted to bring an objective third-party in to look at the facts and verify he had followed the proper procedures.
The process outlined in the Public Employees Local 71 collective bargaining agreement, the borough manager plays a key role in most steps of the process.
But the current acting manager is Michael Fullerton’s wife.
That’s when borough mayor Tom Morphet got involved, trying to broker a deal between the two before it escalated. Morphet said the borough manager asked him to negotiate instead, so he has been meeting with the two men to find a resolution.

After an Assembly fight, an investigation
Morphet and Loomis said they came close to a deal more than a week ago, but that got derailed during the assembly’s first meeting of the new year on Jan. 14.
An executive session was scheduled to hear more about that complaint. But the agenda item was scant on detail because most personnel issues are obscured from the public record.
The assembly ultimately decided not to go into session, as Morphet said he was working on a settlement. But assembly member Mark Smith took the opportunity to talk about why he had wanted the session, and that he wanted to have a larger conversation about an assembly code of conduct.

Smith then laid out his reasons for wanting that conversation and revealed details that made it clear he was referring to Loomis and Fullerton.
“A member of the community publicly named and shamed a senior borough officer – the acting police chief. I mean, blistered them on Facebook,” Smith said. “You know what, I do believe in the First Amendment. I have no problems with that. But the person that did that is sitting at this table.”
Smith continued, but Morphet interrupted him saying it was a personnel matter.
“I’m just saying why I brought it forward,” Smith said. “I’m confident that it’s going to go through the proper personnel channels. The only thing that won’t get handled in personnel channels … none of that is going to address the actual behavior that caused this entire affair.”
The meeting was adjourned shortly after and visibly red Loomis stood up and told Morphet the deal was off. “It’s not happening,” he said.
Loomis left the room, and walked outside to the parking lot, where he explained he’d made a deal despite having not made a public post about his interaction with the police chief.
“I did not do what was on that [Facebook post],” Loomis said. “That’s First Amendment stuff. I had nothing to do with this.”
Loomis said his wife had a First Amendment right to post what she did.
“I don’t even have a Facebook account. I don’t even know how to get on,” he said.
He paused as Smith walked out of the building and raised his arm in a mock military salute – Smith is a retired army colonel – and then began shouting expletives at him.
“Mr. Smith. Colonel, sir. F*** you,” he said. Smith put his head down and quickly walked toward his vehicle. Loomis continued shouting and followed him. “A**hole. You are something else. My dad killed lots of sh**heads like you. F****er.”
Fullerton called this reporter to the public safety building on Friday seeking more information about the incident but I refused to comment on the situation or investigation.
Morphet said police asked him what he’d heard when he walked out of the building as well. He said he remembers walking out, hearing Craig Loomis scream and telling him to go home.
“It wasn’t consequential enough to remember,” he said. “If Craig had said anything that was truly threatening or that seemed to me to be truly threatening, I think I would have remembered it.”
Fullerton later said Haines police would not be investigating any legal complaints that could come out of the conflict between Smith and Loomis for “reasons that should be obvious.”
“I have an outstanding grievance and couldn’t be unbiased,” he said.
Instead, should a formal complaint be filed – Fullerton said he would refer it to another agency for investigation, likely Alaska State Troopers.
It’s unclear whether any investigation will be warranted; Fullerton said no formal complaint had been filed and assembly member Mark Smith did not respond to a phone message seeking more information about the incident.
Moving forward
Local hunter Stuart DeWitt said he initially called the police to report the injured moose. DeWitt later delivered the moose to the Haines school and helped process it.
“We were able to use every single ounce of that moose,” he said. “A quick kill is always best, but the fact that Michael [Fullerton] didn’t spaz out and just start shooting it and making bad choices and shooting it all over in the body, that says something too. He obviously remained somewhat calm.”
Setting aside his frustration with how the Loomises criticized him, Fullerton said he recognizes that the incident could have been handled better.
Though Fullerton says he is an experienced hunter, this was the first moose he’d ever shot. He said his efforts to humanely and quickly kill the animal fell short.
“I regret that the moose suffered for several minutes longer than it needed to,” he said in a written statement.
Fullerton followed up with Fish and Game biologist Carl Koch, who gave him advice about where to place shots to be more effective next time.
Despite their ongoing fight, Fullerton and the Loomises have identified the same problem of borough police being asked to dispatch wildlife, which is a job they are not trained to do.
All three support the idea of having experienced hunters help. The Loomises and DeWitt suggested a wildlife dispatch group of experienced hunters who could help the police department when something like this comes up again; a group of experienced hunters they could call on to shoot wildlife in need of euthanization.
While Fish and Game’s Area wildlife biologist Hannah Manninen said the state does not support that suggestion, it’s an idea that several in the community said they would support.
DeWitt said having a hunter on hand could work, even when they’re not shooting the animal themselves.
“If the cops have to go out on a call that they’re not experienced with, they should have a hunter with 30 years of experience there to help,” he said. “Anybody with common sense would go ‘Oh that makes total sense.’”