Family of man fatally shot by police in West Anchorage files federal wrongful death suit against 4 officers

The family of Kristopher Handy has filed a federal lawsuit against the four police officers who shot and killed the 34-year-old outside his West Anchorage apartment in May, claiming wrongful death and excessive use of deadly force.

Sgt. Noel Senoran and officers Jacob Jones, Jacob Ostolaza and James Stineman were among the nine department members who responded to Handy’s apartment during the early hours of May 13 after a neighbor reported a disturbance in the apartment he shared with his fiancee and several children.

The lawsuit was filed Tuesday in Anchorage’s U.S. District Court by an attorney representing Handy’s parents, Monte and Ardell Handy, and on behalf of three of his children. It claims that the shooting wasn’t justified because Handy didn’t point a weapon at officers.

Prior to the shooting, police arrived at the complex and ordered Handy out of the home, according to video footage released July 31 by the Anchorage Police Department. He raised a gun while walking toward police, but did not point the weapon at them, the footage shows.

The lawsuit emphasizes what the footage also appears to show: After Handy came down a small set of stairs, the four officers shot him while his gun was pointed at the ground.

The complaint argues that simply holding a firearm was not enough justification for the officers to shoot Handy. It also notes that not all of the responding officers fired at him, including two who had a clear view of Handy and had their weapons raised.

Handy did not threaten the officers at any time, the complaint said. When he raised the gun in the moments prior to the shooting, he did so to show officers he had a weapon “by holding the gun straight up into the air so that the barrel was pointed at the sky — not at any of the officers or other persons,” attorney James Roberts, who is representing the Handy family, wrote in the complaint.

The officers at the scene warned Handy they had a police dog, but they did not deploy the dog or use other less lethal force before shooting Handy, the complaint said.

One of the officers also fired a single shot after Handy was “incapacitated on the ground, and shots had stopped being fired,” it said.

The lawsuit does not name the municipality or police department as defendants, but Roberts said in an interview Tuesday that the city may be added to litigation in the future. The case was filed against the four defendants first because “we’re extremely confident on these claims,” he said.

The family is mainly seeking accountability and justice through the lawsuit, Roberts said. They have not yet determined how much money they are seeking in the suit, he said.

The Office of Special Prosecutions in late July released a review of Handy’s shooting and determined the officers involved were justified in their use of force and would not face criminal charges. No officers in Alaska have been criminally charged for their role in a shooting during recent decades.

Roberts said he doesn’t expect the state’s finding to impact the civil case because the standards for criminal and civil cases are different.

Handy’s death was the first to be captured by body-worn cameras after the police department was fully outfitted with the equipment in March.

The shooting spurred public outcry for the department to release the footage, especially because the initial police account of the encounter said Handy had “raised a long gun” toward the officers before he was shot. In the days following the shooting, a neighbor posted surveillance camera footage of the encounter online that appeared to contradict the police account.

The law department’s review confirmed that Handy had not pointed a weapon toward the officers during the brief encounter.

The police department in late July released an edited video that included some of the footage from Handy’s shooting. His family has pushed for the full footage to be released and has not watched the version released by police. The department plans to release the redacted raw footage on Thursday, Chief Sean Case said last week.

A police spokeswoman did not immediately provide responses to questions, including whether municipal attorneys would represent the officers.

The officers had not been served as of Tuesday afternoon, according to a federal courts database. Their attorneys were not yet listed in court filings.