State finds use of force justified in fatal shooting of East Anchorage woman by SWAT officer

A state review released Tuesday found an Anchorage police sergeant was justified in his use of force when he fatally shot a 58-year-old woman during a SWAT standoff in June.

The Office of Special Prosecutions review sent to Anchorage Police Chief Sean Case on Sunday determined Sgt. Jonathan Butler would not face criminal charges in the death of Lisa Fordyce-Blair.

The 18-page letter summarized a number of steps that patrol officers, negotiators and SWAT officers took to try to get Fordyce-Blair to come out of her East Anchorage home after she barricaded herself inside following a confrontation with a neighbor on June 19.

Police initially responded to her home on the 7400 block of East 20th Avenue after a neighbor reported she had threatened him and his son with a gun while they were mowing her lawn, the review said. The neighbor told police her behavior was unusual and they were friends, it said.

Fordyce-Blair had barricaded herself inside her home by the time officers arrived, and they tried to serve an arrest warrant on a charge of third-degree assault stemming from the threat to her neighbor, the review said.

Negotiators made announcements over a loudspeaker repeatedly for more than four hours, spoke with her on the phone and communicated by text message, fired less-lethal rounds at her house and through her windows, deployed chemicals into her house and flew a drone through her window as they tried to get her to come out, the review said.

The review notes that officers were concerned Fordyce-Blair may have been experiencing mental health issues, according to the letter. The negotiators spoke with one of Fordyce-Blair’s family members, who said she had sent him a text the day before that didn’t make sense, the letter said.

Negotiators talked with Fordyce-Blair by phone and text at several points during the standoff, according to the letter. She told them by text that she was safe and thanked them “for securing the warrant officers back and protecting my truck,” the letter said.

Eventually, Fordyce-Blair began firing shots from inside the house, the letter said. Footage showed her firing at and striking a drone, it said. She also fired at a second drone that police sent into the home, the letter said.

Multiple officers said they believed Fordyce-Blair “posed an immediate threat to the public,” the review said.

Officers deployed a second round of chemical agents into the home to try to get Fordyce-Blair to come out, the letter said. Shortly afterward, the garage door began opening, with Fordyce-Blair visible inside, and officers gave commands for her to drop a gun she held in her left hand, the review said. Butler fired and fatally shot her, it said.

During an interview, Butler said he believed he saw Fordyce-Blair begin to raise her handgun “towards his direction” and thought she was going to try to kill him, the review said. He said she did not appear to be impacted by the chemicals police had deployed, which surprised him, the letter said.

Fordyce-Blair was one of six people shot by Anchorage police since mid-May. Three other people died and two were wounded.

This is the fourth Office of Special Prosecutions review to be released stemming from the recent Anchorage shootings. All of the officers involved in the other shootings that have been reviewed by the state so far were found to be justified in their use of force. No officers have been criminally charged in Alaska for their role in a shooting in recent decades.

There is no body-camera footage of Fordyce-Blair’s shooting because Anchorage SWAT officers were not equipped with the technology at the time of the shooting.