A 38-year-old Juneau man is in serious but stable condition in a Seattle hospital after being shot by a Juneau Police Department officer Saturday morning.<\/p>\n
According to JPD\u2019s account of events, two officers responded to a reported car crash Out the Road about 4 a.m. Saturday. Officers found the accident in the 16500 block of Oceanview Drive about 4:19 a.m.<\/p>\n
The vehicle was a gray Jeep Cherokee that had fled from police about 1 a.m. that morning.<\/p>\n
When police investigated the accident, they found the driver had barricaded himself inside the vehicle.<\/p>\n
According to JPD\u2019s account of events, \u201cWithin one minute, officers requested medical assistance for the driver who had been shot one time by one of the officers.\u201d<\/p>\n
Police say multiple shots were fired but did not have an exact count as of Saturday.<\/p>\n
\u201cI do not know,\u201d JPD chief Bryce Johnson said. \u201cThere were not a whole bunch … it was a small number.\u201d<\/p>\n
At a 3 p.m. Saturday press conference, Johnson said the department will not release the victim\u2019s name because he has not been charged with a crime, but Johnson did confirm that the person was unarmed.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re unaware of any weapons at the scene,\u201d Johnson said.<\/p>\n
The Jeep was lodged in a ditch, and it was not immediately clear whether the vehicle could have presented a danger to officers.<\/p>\n
Alaska law allows officers to use deadly force if a person \u201cmay otherwise endanger life or inflict serious physical injury unless arrested without delay.\u201d<\/p>\n
Earlier that evening, an officer had attempted to pull over the Cherokee at the intersection of Egan Drive and Mendenhall Loop Road. That vehicle failed to stop, and the officer declined to pursue.<\/p>\n
\u201cVehicle pursuits are incredibly dangerous,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cPeople die in vehicle pursuits … we\u2019re not going to chase someone just over a failure to yield.\u201d<\/p>\n
About 3:55 a.m., JPD\u2019s dispatch center received a report from a woman reporting her husband had been a passenger in a car accident. When officers arrived, they found that passenger and a driver. Alcohol was involved in the accident.<\/p>\n
Johnson said the vehicle\u2019s driver \u201cwas known to the officer who was arriving\u201d and \u201chad made threats in the past to harm police officers.\u201d<\/p>\n
Of the responding officers, one was the shift duty sergeant, and the other was an \u201cexperienced\u201d police officer. JPD has added several new officers in recent months.<\/p>\n
JPD will not name the officer who shot the driver until at least Monday, the department said in a notice earlier Saturday.<\/p>\n
The driver was taken by ambulance to Bartlett Regional Hospital and then to Seattle by medevac flight for further treatment. At 2:30 p.m. Saturday, according to JPD, the man was in serious but stable condition.<\/p>\n
Under JPD policy, the officers involved in the shooting have been put on administrative leave while the shooting is investigated.<\/p>\n
The department has contacted the local district attorney, it said in a prepared statement, as well as the Alaska Bureau of Investigation for assistance with the case.<\/p>\n
Under state procedures, the Alaska Department of Law\u2019s Office of Special Prosecutions will investigate the incident as well.<\/p>\n
Oceanview Drive remained blocked to traffic throughout the day Saturday as the investigation progressed. Johnson said officers were expected to remain on the scene through the evening in an attempt to determine exactly what happened.<\/p>\n
\u201cI anticipate them being on scene, continuing to investigate late into the night today,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
JPD does not have body cameras on its officers, though the officers do carry audio recording devices and their police vehicles are equipped with cameras.<\/p>\n
Officer-involved shootings are extraordinarily rare in Juneau. The last was in 2007, when a JPD officer shot and killed 40-year-old Randall Clevenger near Thunder Mountain Trailer Park when Clevenger advanced on officers with a raised samurai sword. That shooting was the first in 11 years to involve Juneau police.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese are just some of the most tragic events,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cThey\u2019re tragic to all involved.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A 38-year-old Juneau man is in serious but stable condition in a Seattle hospital after being shot by a Juneau Police Department officer Saturday morning. According to JPD\u2019s account of events, two officers responded to a reported car crash Out the Road about 4 a.m. Saturday. Officers found the accident in the 16500 block of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":426,"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":[75],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-4627","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4627","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\/426"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4627"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4627\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4627"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=4627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}