A state investigation into the Feb. 17 incident in which Haines interim police chief Michael Fullerton shot at a man near the post office determined that he was justified in doing so.
The confrontation between Fullerton and the Haines resident occurred after a call reporting a man brandishing a knife on Soap Suds Alley. The Chilkat Valley News does not generally name people involved in a crime until they’ve been convicted.
According to Fullerton’s statements to state Department of Public Safety investigators, he intercepted a man who matched a description given to dispatchers and saw the man holding a knife.
According to those statements to investigators, Fullerton said he fired two shots after the man threw two knives at him, but missed. After a brief chase through downtown Haines, Fullerton and officer Maxwell Jusi arrested the man.
The borough staff would not immediately release the report, but after a records request the state’s Department of Law released it to the Chilkat Valley News. In the report, state investigators concluded that Fullerton was justified in using deadly force based on a “threat of imminent serious physical injury and/or death towards himself.”
The report includes more detailed accounts than had previously been public, including from Fullerton and anonymous witnesses.
Still, questions about the exact sequence of events remain partially unanswered.
One witness told investigators he saw the confrontation as he was driving by and stopped his car roughly 20 feet away. The witness stated there “did not appear to be a lot of moving” and described the scene “feeling almost like a standoff.”
That witness also told investigators that when he first drove past the confrontation, Fullerton had his gun pointed at the man. The report did not say whether the witness knew how much time passed between seeing Fullerton with his gun pointed and seeing him fire.
Fullerton told investigators he drew his weapon as he exited his vehicle and held it “at guard,” a term describing pointing it at the ground between him and the man.
He said that the man first complied with an order to drop his knives and began to walk away. But according to Fullerton, when he moved forward to retrieve and secure the knives, the man returned to them, picked them up, and threw them at Fullerton. Fullerton says he fired after the first knife was thrown, at which point he and the man were “approximately seven to 10 yards away” from each other.
Two shell casings, but no bullets, were found at the scene. Investigators said that was likely because the shots were fired “in the direction of the open ocean.”
The report includes evidence suggesting the man who was shot at may have been in a mental health crisis or an otherwise altered mental state. Fullerton told investigators he had prior interactions with the man, and had spoken with the man’s parents previously about their son’s mental health struggles.
The man is facing charges of third-degree assault. In charging documents, he’s represented as having “repeatedly [acknowledging] attempting to ‘murder’ police.” But the report adds significant context to that interview with state police investigators.
According to the report, the man initially described his reasons for throwing the knives with incoherent statements about the post office and his bank account having been hacked.
The report describes the man’s statements as “fragmented and non-linear in thought.”
Only later in the interview with investigators did the man say he was “aiming for the side of the police officer’s neck.” The investigator then prompted him: “Correct me if I’m wrong, but you were throwing the knife at the jugular, which would have caused him to instantly die, but by doing so, if he did, then that would help determine if your bank was hacked into?”
The man answered “yes” to that statement.
Those statements were key in the report. Despite their largely incoherent nature, the state deputy chief assistant attorney general John Darnall cited them in attributing to the man intent to “seriously [injure] or kill” Fullerton.
Fullerton announced earlier this month that he would be stepping down from the borough police force. His last day was at the end of April.