State clears officers who fatally shot man outside West Anchorage apartment of any criminal charges

A state review released Wednesday found the use of force justified after four Anchorage police officers fired at a 34-year-old man outside his West Anchorage apartment building in May, killing him.

Just hours later, in Anchorage’s first body-worn camera footage release since officers started wearing the technology this year, the police department publicly shared a video that included sections of footage from officer body and dash cameras, nearby surveillance cameras and audio from the 911 calls and dispatch communication with responding officers.

In the video, Kristopher Handy is seen walking from his apartment, briefly raising a gun above his head as he walks along the building and descends a small set of stairs and toward a group of officers below. Police can be heard shouting at Handy, demanding that he drop the weapon and raise his hands. He responds by shouting a profanity at them.

Handy appears to be moving toward the officers before they fire.

He was the first person to be shot by Anchorage police who were wearing cameras. Officers have since shot four other people, killing two and wounding two others. The department has faced mounting public pressure to release body-camera footage.

The 10-minute video released Wednesday is not raw footage but a compilation of different videos and audio, police Chief Sean Case said during a news conference Wednesday morning. It also includes narration and graphics showing the layout of the apartment building.

In the days after the shooting, surveillance footage that circulated online raised questions about the department’s initial accounts, which said that Handy “raised a long gun towards the officers” before he was shot.

The newly released footage does not show Handy pointing the gun at any of the officers, although he does appear to briefly point it into the air as he walks. The weapon is pointed down as he steps off a small flight of stairs and begins walking toward officers.

The review by the state Office of Special Prosecutions also found that Handy was not seen pointing the weapon directly at officers at any time. But, it said, other aspects of the encounter made it “objectively reasonable” for each man to think Handy was “about to immediately cause harm” to them or other officers and fire their weapons.

Family members told investigators that Handy told them he was suicidal the day before he was killed and that he had been drinking in the hours leading up to the encounter, according to the state review. He lived in the apartment with his pregnant fiancee, Harmony Stitt, and several children who were home when the shooting occurred.

On Wednesday, attorneys separately representing Stitt and Handy’s immediate family called for the footage to be released without redactions and edits.

“The public relations team at APD must have played a significant role in editing the video to make Kris seem as dangerous as possible and to justify the shooting,” said Mike Kramer, an attorney representing Stitt.

Both attorneys said they did not believe the shooting was justified.

‘Aggressive manner’

The Office of Special Prosecutions last Friday sent Case a letter that determined Sgt. Noel Senoran and officers Jason Stineman, Jacob Ostolaza and Jacob Jones will not face criminal charges in the shooting. The 21-page letter details the investigation, including interviews with officers and witnesses, video footage, an examination of weapons and the medical examiner’s report.

The review of each person’s actions lists factors including Handy’s “aggressive manner” as he descended stairs from the apartment, profanity he shouted during the encounter, and his decision to ignore instructions to raise his hands and drop his weapon.

Senoran declined to be interviewed by investigators and Barker was not interviewed but wrote a report, the review said.

Case on Wednesday said officers, like citizens, have the constitutional right to not make statements during a criminal investigation. The officers are required, however, to make statements during an internal investigation to determine if they violated policy, he said.

The internal investigation is ongoing.

What 911 dispatchers heard

A neighbor who lived next to Handy in the apartment building on the 7100 block of Bearfoot Drive first called 911 on the evening of May 12 because Stitt asked her to, according to the review. Stitt again asked her to call around 2 a.m. on May 13, it said.

The neighbor told a dispatcher Handy and Stitt were arguing, she heard screaming and thought it was physical, according to audio of a call included in the video released by police.

She made another call to 911 soon after 2 a.m. because she said she saw Handy walking outside with what looked like a rifle or baseball bat and he appeared to be waiting for police in the street, according to the audio. She told dispatchers she knew Handy owned a weapon.

“I don’t know what he did in the house, but I swear I heard two shots in the house, but I’m not positive,” the neighbor can be heard telling dispatchers.

The state review does not include any information about Handy actually firing a weapon. Stitt previously told the Daily News that the gun did not work because the firing pin had been removed.

Not ‘directly pointing’ at officers

Stitt told investigators that Handy returned to the house after going outside, but was acting erratic and would not listen, the review said.

When police arrived, they commanded Handy to come outside. He walked out with a pistol-gripped short-barreled shotgun, raised it in the air above his head briefly and then continued walking toward the officers, the review said.

After the shooting, police initially said they believed Handy “pointed his shotgun at the officers on scene,” the review said. One of the responding officers who did not fire his weapon reported he believed Handy started to raise the gun shortly before four officers fired at him, but the review said “from the video footage accessible to OSP, Handy is not seen directly pointing the shotgun at the officers.”

The autopsy found Handy had 10 gunshot wounds and three other injuries consistent with bullet grazes, according to the review.

Stitt told officers after the shooting that Handy was depressed and may have mixed his depression medication with alcohol, according to the review. An autopsy found that his blood alcohol content was more than three times the legal limit to drive a vehicle in Alaska and an antidepressant medication was also found in his system.

One of Handy’s family members later told investigators he had sustained a head injury at work and had not been the same since, the review said. He’d demanded his guns back from his family the day before the shooting, made suicide threats and told his family goodbye, according to the review.

While investigators were speaking with one of Handy’s family members, they learned there was security camera footage that had not been turned over to the Office of Special Prosecutions, according to the review. Police last week provided 12 additional videos from home surveillance cameras to state investigators. It wasn’t immediately clear why the department had not initially handed over the footage.

‘Like a trailer to a movie’

Handy’s parents and brother have not yet watched the video released by police and do not intend to, said their attorney, James Roberts.

“They’ve asked multiple times for just the unedited versions of the footage and they’ve been denied that,” Roberts said. “So until we can get copies of that, they’re going to hold off on watching it.”

Kramer, who is separately representing Stitt, said she received a copy of the video on Tuesday and watched it. Kramer and Roberts both said in separate interviews Wednesday that they believe the video is problematic.

“They chop and splice things together — it almost looks like a trailer to a movie, which is simply not what this is,” said Roberts. “This is not something for the police to dramatize. It looks like they may be using this in police training videos one day, who knows? This is a man’s life that was taken and they should have just put the video footage out for it to be viewed, not in some sort of persuasive manner.”

No law enforcement officers in Alaska have been criminally charged in a shooting during recent decades.

Kramer said because of that, he was not surprised by the Office of Special Prosecutions’ conclusion, “but how they got to that result raises some troubling questions for me and it should be raising troubling questions for other folks as well.”

Earlier this month, the Office of Special Prosecutions finished an investigation into the June shooting of 22-year-old Kaleb Bourdukofsky and found the officers were justified in their use of force. Bourdukofsky is accused of fatally shooting a 21-year-old man behind a downtown Anchorage bar before running from police. Two officers fired at him, striking and wounding him.

Case on Wednesday said the department will not immediately release footage of Bourdukofsky’s shooting because the Office of Special Prosecutions said the release could negatively impact prosecution.

The police department is planning to release footage of the June shooting that killed 21-year-old Tyler May next week, Case said.

May had fired a shot into the air near the Anchorage Senior Activities Center and was shot and killed after he tried fleeing from police. An Office of Special Prosecutions review released last week declared the three officers who shot him were justified in using force. The review said May pulled a pistol from his waistband “and pointed it in the direction of officers” when he was shot.