Man killed by police in downtown Juneau

A 35-year-old Juneau man was shot and killed after a confrontation with Juneau police officers and Alaska State Troopers on Monday.

Officers with the Juneau Police Department were following up on an earlier report of an assault with Steven Kissack when he “produced a knife and refused to follow orders,” the troopers wrote in a statement online Monday night.

An Alaska Wildlife Trooper and additional Juneau police officers showed up at the scene, shooting bean bag rounds at Kissack as they negotiated with him to drop the knife, the dispatch said.

Kissack “charged officers while brandishing the knife,” according to the initial version of events by troopers. He was shot by “multiple law enforcement officers” and declared dead at a Juneau hospital.

The Juneau Empire reported that Kissack was homeless and well known in the capitol city for his dog companion. The dog was in the area at the time Kissack was killed, was uninjured and is “being cared for,” according to Department of Public Safety spokesman Austin McDaniel.

The incident happened on busy Front Street in downtown Juneau just after 1 p.m., troopers said.

The Alaska Department of Public Safety did not immediately answer a question about the kind of knife police say Kissack wielded, saying it was part of an open investigation into the shooting. The Alaska Department of Investigation will review the case, according to the agency.

The shooting is the second fatal law enforcement shooting involving state troopers in a week. Troopers shot and killed a 67-year-old man “brandishing a harpoon” on a crowded Kasilof beach July 8.

Anchorage Police Department officers have shot five people, three fatally, since May.