Federal court finds Anchorage police used ‘excessive force’ in SWAT standoff death of mentally ill man

In a rare and potentially consequential decision, a federal judge found Monday that the Anchorage Police Department used “excessive force” in the case of a mentally ill man who died in his home’s frigid, flooded crawlspace as he hid from military-style SWAT team tactics in 2018.

His daughter had called 911 seeking help for her father, who she thought was in the midst of a manic episode.

The ruling came Monday in a long-running lawsuit against the police officers and municipality filed by the family of Dan Demott, who was 66. The judgment came after a four-day federal bench trial in March.

Chief U.S. District Judge Sharon Gleason found that excessive force was “a substantial factor in causing the death of Demott” and that it was more likely than not the “SWAT team’s use of unconstitutionally excessive force against Demott was an actual cause of his death.”

Gleason awarded $150,000 in damages to Demott’s children.

Such rulings are vanishingly rare, and the majority of use-of-force-related civilian lawsuits against police departments in Alaska fail because of qualified immunity, a legal doctrine that protects public officials such as police from liability when they are performing duties within the scope of their jobs.

The city, represented by attorneys from the firm Guess and Rudd, had argued that even if the force used was found to be excessive, qualified immunity protected the officers, Luis Soto and Steven Childers, from liability. Soto appears to have retired from the department. Childers is listed as an investigative support unit sergeant.

The Anchorage Police Department said the city plans to appeal the decision.

“Because this case remains in litigation, we cannot comment further on the legal matter,” Anchorage Police Chief Sean Case said Monday. “With that said, APD takes such matters seriously, considers all feedback, and is committed to upholding the highest standards of conduct within our department.”

Dan Demott was born in Southeast Alaska and had lived in Anchorage for many years, his daughter Kelsey Howell said in an interview Monday.

In his younger years he’d worked in Valdez on oil spill cleanup boats, she said. He had struggled with alcoholism but was active in recovery circles and had been sober since for many years, she said. He loved going to bingo, taking his grandson to the park, and was known for giving rides to anyone who asked, she said.

On Nov. 5, 2018, Howell and her dad got into an argument about him touching her son’s face — she thought his hands were dirty and asked him not to, according to court documents.

But the argument was bigger than that: Howell said. She knew he was spiraling into a manic episode and needed to be hospitalized. Demott had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and had spent periods of time at the Alaska Psychiatric Institute. He was paranoid and delusional, thinking phones were bugged and people were out to get him, his daughter said.

The lawsuit asserts that despite knowing that Demott was in a mental health crisis, police for hours bombarded the house with SWAT tactics that included shooting more than a dozen rounds of potent and painful tear gas into the home, using deafening sirens and breaking windows.

The narrative in court documents spells out what happened next: Howell called 911 and said her dad was acting strangely, tearing curtains down, barricading the front door and “experiencing delusions police were watching him,” according to the court decision. She told the dispatcher her dad “had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and manic depression, that he had been to API before, and that he was refusing to take his medication,” the court decision said.

Police arrived, and Howell and her child left the home.

Demott stayed inside, along with a roommate, Michael Girardin. Family members told police they believed Demott had a gun but that it was locked in a safe he had no access to, according to court narrative. He was seen inside with a sword, the court documents said. By 7:30 p.m., police had received an arrest warrant and a search warrant: They planned to take Demott into custody on misdemeanor fear assault, criminal mischief and obstructing arrest charges because he’d barricaded himself inside the house.

By an hour later, a SWAT team had arrived. The court documents describe the SWAT team beginning to make announcements telling Demott and Girardin to leave the house, and threatening to use dogs, tasers and tear gas. A high-pitched siren noise shrieked.

For a man who was already in a mental health crisis, delusional and paranoid about police, it must have been terrifying, said Jeff Barber, the Demott family’s attorney.

“I mean, it must have been like aliens attacking, for someone who was already imagining people are trying to get him,” he said. “They just acted like he was going to respond like a normal, rational person. They didn’t deviate from any of the SWAT tactics they normally do to take into consideration that his mind wasn’t working properly.”

Meanwhile, Howell and her brother stood by on the street outside, watching as the SWAT standoff went on for hours, Howell said, becoming more and more worried.

The court decision found that a loudspeaker was never used to try to negotiate with Demott, talk about his mental health needs or to allow family to communicate with him.

The narrative continues: At 11 p.m., police shot foam projectiles at the house, breaking a large window. They caught a glimpse of Demott moving away from the broken window. Then they sent tear gas into the house.

Girardin exited the house after the first tear gas, leaving Demott inside by himself. Demott, Girardin told police, was going into a crawlspace he had called a “bunker,” according to the court documents. Girardian didn’t go because it was “too cold.”

At that point, the judge wrote, Demott was “a lone individual experiencing a mental health crisis in his home who was retreating to the crawl space. He was no longer an immediate threat to the safety of the officers or others.”

The officers were “constitutionally required to have considered a mental health intervention or other less invasive alternatives” before shooting more tear gas into the home, she wrote.

Eleven different APD officers at the scene had taken a 40-hour critical intervention training, according to the court documents. Members of the crisis negotiating team were there, too. But no one, the judge found, “changed any of their tactics or approach due to Demott’s mental health.”

Instead, at 12:43 a.m., police shot six more rounds of tear gas into the house. At 1:28, the SWAT team sent six more rounds of tear gas in, this time to the crawlspace.

Finally, at 2 a.m., the SWAT team entered the house searching for Demott. It wasn’t until 4:15 a.m. that they found Demott dead, submerged in water in the crawlspace. The air temperature was 15 degrees.

The medical examiner could not determine if Demott died by drowning or by hypothermia. His death was ruled accidental.

At trial, an officer involved testified that the night was “almost textbook of a SWAT callout,” within normal SWAT callout procedures.

This year, the Anchorage Police Department has again been under scrutiny for its use of force policies. A department review of past use-of-force deaths after a spate of police shootings this spring and summer found that mental illness among people involved in deadly incidents with police can be hard to determine, and that better data is needed.

Howell said she misses her dad, who isn’t getting to see his grandkids grow up. But she said she’s grateful for the judge’s decision and wants APD to change the way they respond to people in mental health crisis.

What happened was “the polar opposite of what should have happened” when she called 911 for help, she said.

It is hard, and rare, to go to trial with a lawsuit challenging police use of force, said Barber, the attorney. The decision “definitely tells them that they’re not immune from liability all the time,” he said.