State won’t file criminal charges against Anchorage police sergeant who killed knifeman

The Alaska Department of Law says criminal charges will not be filed against the Anchorage police sergeant. A 24-year-old man was fatally shot as he ran towards police with a knife in his hand In late September.

The decision announced Tuesday reflects the latest in a series of fatal police shootings this year that have been deemed justified. No law enforcement officers in Alaska have been criminally charged in recent years for their role in the shooting.

James Afuvai died after being shot twice by police Sgt. James Dokken in the Mountain View neighborhood on September 29. Police said an officer trained to respond to possible mental health issues responded but was still on the road when the attack occurred.

Afuvai was the eighth person shot by police so far this year. A total of 5 people died and 3 people were injured. The department recently concluded an internal review of police shootings over the past 15 years, in which police Chief Sean Case said: change the way officers respond to high-risk calls.

State Office of Special Prosecutors’ 23 page review The document regarding Afuvai’s shooting was sent to Case last week. The review determined that Dokken was justified in shooting Afuvai because he reasonably believed that the other man would otherwise harm or kill him. Dokken has been working in this department for 16 years.

On Tuesday the police department was also released body camera footage It shows the moments leading up to Afuvai’s death.

The footage also included audio of three 911 calls Afuvai made just after 6:30 p.m. on the evening of September 29. During the calls, he asked police to respond to the 500 block of North Park Avenue, but gave different reasons and gave dispatchers a fake name.

During the first call, Afuvai said “I think I’m in trouble” and “someone got hurt” before hanging up. In his next meeting, he told them that “people are walking around the neighborhood and opening fire” and that his window had been shot the night before. She called 911 a third time to check if the police were responding.

The state review said Dokken and two other officers met at a police station in Mountain View to discuss their approach. It was stated that one of the officers called Afuvai directly while he was on his way to the substation to get more information. During the interview, Afuvai told the officer that “there was a crazy guy with a knife” outside in front of him.

The state review said officers found Afuvai was classified as a “red flag offender” in their database because he had a history of violence. In a later interview with investigators, Dokken said an officer assigned to the department’s Mobile Response Team was asked to join the response, but according to the investigation, he was driving from the other side of town.

Officers on the team are specifically trained to respond to mental health crises and are often paired with a behavioral health clinician.

But because the team was relatively new and staffing was limited, no clinician was available to respond that day, Case said in an interview Wednesday.

The investigation stated that Dokken and two officers decided to go to the area where Afuvai was believed to be to make sure no one was injured while waiting for the MIT officer.

The investigation stated that Dokken parked next to Duldida Park and saw a shirtless man, later identified as Afuvai, outside the address where a search was requested. Afuvai started walking towards Dokken’s car. The sergeant told investigators he got out of his patrol car to contact Afuvai because he believed Afuvai was coming to talk to him about the call, according to the investigation.

In the body camera footage, Dokken can be heard immediately after getting out of the car warning other officers over the radio that Afuvai had a knife.

The footage shows Dokken walking backwards with his gun drawn and repeatedly telling Afuvai to drop the knife. Afuvai continues walking forward and does not drop the knife. As a civilian pickup truck, not involved in the incident, turns onto the street, two other police officers approach in their cars and turn on their lights and sirens.

In the footage, Afuvai looks back at the vehicles and runs towards Dokken, knife still in hand, and Dokken shoots him three times. The state review stated Afuvai was shot twice, once in the torso and once in the thigh.

In the footage, other officers can be seen quickly getting out of the car and ordering Afuvai, who was lying on the ground, to drop the knife. Afuvai was taken to hospital, where it was announced that he died.

On Wednesday, Case said he thought officers prepared and handled the situation in the best way possible. Officers requested additional assistance to respond to someone with possible mental health issues, the official said.

Case said officers thought through their response before arriving, but it “very, very quickly turned into a very dynamic situation.”

“You always want these situations to play out differently because the loss of life involved is traumatic; it’s traumatic for the officers, it’s traumatic for the community,” he said. “And when I look at this incident, there aren’t a lot of conclusions about what we could have done differently because I think we were prepared for that scenario, and unfortunately that’s the situation that officers find themselves in sometimes.”