Wasilla police kill 42-year-old man in Big Lake shootout

    Wasilla police shot and killed a 42-year-old Big Lake man in a shootout Tuesday afternoon near Mile 2.7 of Big Lake Road.

    Troopers said John R. Rivera, 42, died when Wasilla police returned fire after Rivera shot at them with a hand gun.The names of the officers involved in the shooting are not being released pending further investigation by the Alaska Bureau of Investigation.

   Troopers spokeswoman Megan Peters said Houston police first arrived on the scene at a residence on South Park Road after receiving a call at approximately 3 p.m. from a Florida man who said he believed his son -- later identified as Rivera -- was suicidal and armed inside a home about a mile outside of Houston city limits.

    Shortly after officers arrived, shots were heard from inside the residence, prompting a large-scale response from Alaska State Troopers, Alaska Wildlife Troopers and the Wasilla Police Department.

    According to Peters, after law enforcement attempted to make contact with Rivera from outside the home, he left the residence armed with a hand gun, walking down a driveway before turning back toward the home. She said Rivera was then contacted by two WPD officers, who he began shooting at. The officers returned fire, killing Rivera.

     Police were forced to shut down all traffic on both Big Lake and South Park roads for over an hour while the incident unfolded.

    Peters said Tuesday night that she did not know if there were any other people inside the home where the shooting occurred.

    The shooting took place at a residence located up a steep hill just off of Big Lake Road. More than a dozen police cars and emergency vehicles were staged outside the home and at nearby Jake’s Automotive, which is located at the bottom of the hill from where the shooting occurred.

    Jake’s Automotive owner Mark Koehler and his wife, Shauna, were inside their home at the base of the hill when police started showing up in their driveway.

    About an hour after ths shooting stopped, Shauna Koehler stood in her driveway looking up toward the home on the hill.

    “It’s not every day you see cops with assault rifles standing outside your door,” she said.

    She said she and her husband didn’t know who lived in the home where the man was killed, and it was unclear Tuesday night if Rivera lived there.

    The couple were inside their own home waiting for their son to arrive home from school when Mark Koehler first noticed one, then several police cars pulling into the driveway that serves both their home and adjacent auto shop off Big Lake Road.

    In the tense minutes that followed the massive police response, the Koehlers waited nervously inside their home, wondering what was going on outside. Shauna Koehler said the only thing police told them was to stay on the side of the house facing away from the hill.

    The Koehlers didn’t hear the initial shots that started the incident, but Shauna Koehler said it soon became apparent that something bad was happening on the hill when a barrage of gunfire erupted. She said she heard what sounded like "at least 30" shots fired in the fatal exchange.

    “I was like, ‘holy moly!’” she recalled. “It scared the living daylights out of me."

    Tuesday's shooting was not Rivera's first firearms-related incident. On Dec. 14, 2006, Troopers responded to Mat-Su Regional Medical Center for a report of a male with a self-inflicted gunshot wound to his upper chest. According to a Troopers press release issued at the time, Rivera was treated for non-life threatening injuries after he "accidentally shot himself with a .38 caliber revolver at his Big Lake home."

    Check www.frontiersman.com for further updates as they become available.

    Contact the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman at 352-2250.