‘A tragedy’: Juneau homeless man shot by police mourned by shocked community

JUNEAU — Dozens of people packed Resurrection Lutheran Church in Juneau on Tuesday evening to remember Steve Kissack, a 35-year-old homeless man who was shot by police on a busy downtown street Monday afternoon.

The Juneau Police Department said officers were following up on reports of an alleged assault involving Kissack that occurred Sunday at a nearby apartment building. He “held a knife and refused to follow requests and orders from the officer to put the knife down,” police said.

An Alaska Wildlife Trooper and additional Juneau police officers joined the situation. Antonio “El Boxer” Gamez Escalante, a tattoo artist visiting Juneau, said he witnessed the shooting before he flew home to Texas. He said it was “chaotic” and that “everything happened so fast.”

Gamez Escalante filmed part of Kissack’s altercation with police in a video that has since been shared widely on social media. In the graphic video, law enforcement officers have their firearms drawn and appear to be hitting Kissack with bean bag rounds to little effect.

Soaked by rain, Kissack walks forward with one hand up, as he holds “a good-sized knife” in his right hand, Gamez Escalante said.

Police shout loudly to “stop right there.” Kissack, though, kept advancing and charged at officers with the knife, police say.

Multiple law enforcement officers shot Kissack. Paramedics attempted to save his life on a street usually packed with cruise ship tourists. Kissack died at Bartlett Regional Hospital, police say.

Kissack didn’t seem aggressive, Gamez Escalante said — he just kept saying, “I have to do it. I have to do it.”

Kissack’s fatal shooting shocked and saddened many in Juneau. Countless social media posts remembered a well-loved and friendly fixture of downtown.

City Manager Katie Koester called the incident “a tragedy” at Monday’s Juneau Assembly meeting.

Juneau Police Chief Derek Bos, in a statement posted online Tuesday, said: “This is a regretful event for everyone involved. We recognize that friends throughout our community, and family far away, will be mourning the loss of Kissack in the days to come. Thank you to all the members of our community who have come together to support the myriad of individuals affected by this incident.”

A makeshift memorial appeared with flowers and photos of Kissack on the street where he was shot. Another shrine appeared a few feet away near a long-shuttered movie theater where Kissack often slept with Juno, a friendly malamute who was his constant companion.

Fellow unhoused friends remembered Kissack as kind, generous and patient. Louis Whittaker, who said he’s been living on the street for the past year, said Kissack “would always help out everybody.”

”It was hard seeing him get gunned down,” he said, wiping away tears in front of Kissack’s shrine.

Juneau Animal Rescue issued a statement Tuesday to reassure concerned residents that Juno was “safe, fed, and warm” at the shelter. As outlined under city ordinance, Juno will spend 10 days at the shelter after the shooting to give time for Kissack’s next of kin to help decide the dog’s future.

At the nearby Crystal Saloon, David Elrod, the bar’s production manager, was planning a benefit concert Tuesday for Kissack. The concert might help the Glory Hall, an emergency shelter and soup kitchen, or Juneau Animal Rescue, Elrod said. Details were still being worked out.

“I think the whole block is really shocked by what happened,” Elrod said.

Kissack had previously told the Juneau Empire that he grew up in Florida and moved to Alaska from Texas. He was “a beautiful man,” “a great guy,” and “nobody has a bad word to say about Steve,” Elrod said.

Service providers had similar descriptions of Kissack. Pastor Karen Perkins from Resurrection Lutheran Church said she’d known him for around five years. He would visit the church’s food pantry and warming shelter. He was always chatting and sharing what he had, she said.

[State finds police use of force justified in downtown Anchorage shooting]

But Perkins said Kissack did not fit well into “existing systems” and at one time or another had been asked to leave most of Juneau’s shelters. Dave Ringle, executive director of St. Vincent de Paul in Juneau, echoed Perkins’ description of Kissack.

“He usually would choose not to be sheltered because he valued his time with his dog,” he said.

Prior police interactions

Several of Kissack’s meetings with Juneau police prior to Monday’s fatal shooting saw him brandish a knife and threaten officers, police said.

In 2021, Kissack was stopped by police downtown after stealing a can of Coke worth 84 cents. According to charging documents, Kissack suddenly drew a “large fixed blade” and walked closely towards an officer as he drew his service pistol.

”I was afraid that I was about to be seriously injured or killed,” Sgt. Ben Beck said in an indictment in June 2021.

In that instance, Kissack eventually sheathed his knife peacefully.

For the next two years, Juneau police did not cite or arrest Kissack. However, since 2023, city officials say Kissack was cited 10 times for “unlawful camping,” and another three times for obstructing the sidewalk — minor offenses that both get a mandatory $500 fine for a third offense.

Deputy Juneau City Manager Robert Barr said it appears Kissack was getting regularly cited because “the public was unable to go around” his downtown campsite, or potentially, because he was blocking access to a business.

“Frequency of citations was directly related to the frequency of occurrence,” Barr said by email.

In February, when two officers contacted Kissack for an outstanding warrant, he became “increasingly hostile” while brandishing a knife and aggressively threatening the lives of officers, charging documents say. But that interaction, too, ended peacefully.

Police said Kissack had “a ~6″ long bowie knife” and other weapons on his person at his February arrest. He was ordered by a judge not to possess a knife 6 inches or longer.

A month later, Juneau police said Kissack was given a trespass notice from a warming shelter. Stopped later by police, officers said he “immediately” reached inside his coat and pulled out a large 9- to 10-inch fixed-blade knife, and again, walked toward officers.

Police say the trespass notice wasn’t served to Kissack. Charging documents do not describe how the March police stop with the knife was resolved.

On Monday afternoon, Juneau police responded to a report of a Sunday assault involving Kissack. Police said after 10 minutes of negotiations and the deployment of non-lethal bean bag rounds, officers shot a non-compliant Kissack multiple times as he rushed at them with a knife.

When asked for more information about the alleged Sunday assault, Deputy Juneau Police Chief Krag Campbell said the department had nothing to add beyond Tuesday’s statement, which had few details.

”Additional details may be released at a later date, but that is still to be determined,” Campbell said by email.

Following Department of Safety policy, Sgt. Branden Forst, a 12-year veteran of the Alaska Wildlife Troopers, was named on Thursday as the officer who fired at Kissack.

Troopers said on Thursday that the Alaska Bureau of Investigation is continuing to review the shooting. The state Office of Special Prosecutions will then determine if lethal force was justified.

Vigil for Kissack

Resurrection Lutheran Church was filled with friends, acquaintances and strangers who spoke on Tuesday evening for over two hours about Kissack and his beloved dog Juno.

Pastor Perkins organized the vigil and said it was important to give Kissack “the same level of honor that we would give anybody else — despite the fact that his community was more dispersed.”

Perkins told the church she had no opinion of the police shooting because she wasn’t there.

The vigil was part funeral, part wake and part community forum where some residents were scathing of Juneau police for fatally shooting Kissack, and others were frustrated at the city’s strained system for caring for homeless people.

A seasonal campground had been used in previous summers for homeless people to pitch a tent and have their own space to shelter. But it was not open this summer after reports of drug use, thefts, violence and sexual assaults, Barr said in a Tuesday interview.

Several unhoused residents told the Daily News that the campground closure had been particularly disruptive and had led to frustration.

“We’re trying to stay dry and warm, just like everybody f—king else,” said Curtis Davis on Tuesday, who described himself as one of Kissack’s best friends.

Service providers say they are working on long-term solutions to get more housing in Juneau, and shorter-term goals to give unhoused people more treatment. Ringle said he would talk to other service providers and city officials to devise strategies to prevent events like Kissack’s shooting from happening again.

On Monday, Perkins said she stood outside Bartlett Regional Hospital crying as she learned Kissack had died.

In the past, homeless people who died on the streets in Juneau were flown to Anchorage for autopsies. They often have never returned, she said.

“And we don’t have an opportunity to come together and say, ‘That’s a loss, that’s a person, that’s a brother, that’s a sister, and we lost them, and they matter and they were enough, and they were loved by God,’” she said to a church full of people, gathered to remember Kissack.