{"id":15955,"date":"2016-05-11T00:40:18","date_gmt":"2016-05-11T07:40:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/trial-begins-for-tanana-man-accused-of-killing-2-troopers\/"},"modified":"2016-05-11T00:40:18","modified_gmt":"2016-05-11T07:40:18","slug":"trial-begins-for-tanana-man-accused-of-killing-2-troopers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/trial-begins-for-tanana-man-accused-of-killing-2-troopers\/","title":{"rendered":"Trial begins for Tanana man accused of killing 2 troopers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>FAIRBANKS \u2014<\/strong> The trial for a Tanana man charged with murder in the fatal shootings of two Alaska State Troopers is underway.<\/p>\n<p>Opening arguments began Monday in the trial of Nathanial Kangas, who\u2019s accused of killing Sgt. Scott Johnson and Trooper Gabe Rich in May 2014 while they were attempting to arrest his father for threatening a village public safety officer, The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner reported.<\/p>\n<p>District Attorney Greggory Olson argued that Kangas should be found guilty of two counts each of first-degree murder and second-degree murder, one count of third-degree assault and four counts of tampering with physical evidence.<\/p>\n<p>Greg Parvin, Kangas\u2019 attorney, did not deny that his client had shot and killed both troopers, but said Kangas was not guilty of premeditated murder.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat he did was impulsive, reactionary, without forethought, without any thought,\u201d Parvin said.<\/p>\n<p>Village Public Safety Officer Mark Haglin took the witness stand and described the events leading up to the incident, including his encounter with Kangas\u2019 father, Arvin, who he accused of threatening him with a shotgun.<\/p>\n<p>Haglin said when Rich and Johnson responded to the man\u2019s home that the situation escalated and \u201cArvin was hostile, not listening to reason.\u201d After a brief struggle between the troopers and Arvin Kangas, Haglin said he heard loud popping noises that he thought were firecrackers. That is when he turned and saw Nathanial Kangas with a rifle and \u201cintense hatred in his eyes.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>After trying to get Rich help because he thought the man was still alive, Haglin said he came back to find Nathaniel waving a white plastic grocery bag in what he later realized was an improvised white flag of truce.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe thought we were going to execute him,\u201d Haglin said.<\/p>\n<p>Arvin Kangas was found guilty in April 2015 of evidence tampering for manipulating the troopers\u2019 bodies and guns after they were shot and killed. He was sentenced in September to eight years in prison.<\/p>\n<p>The elder Kangas told prosecutors his son killed the troopers while trying to protect him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>FAIRBANKS \u2014 The trial for a Tanana man charged with murder in the fatal shootings of two Alaska State Troopers is underway. Opening arguments began Monday in the trial of Nathanial Kangas, who\u2019s accused of killing Sgt. Scott Johnson and Trooper Gabe Rich in May 2014 while they were attempting to arrest his father for [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[230],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-15955","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-state-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15955","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15955"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15955\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15955"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15955"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15955"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=15955"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}