Bar fight leads to trial for local man

PALMER — A Palmer man, on trial this week, is charged with assault with a deadly weapon for pulling a gun during a bar fight.

Tyler Gardino, 29, was charged with assault and weapons misconduct. Alaska State Troopers pulled him out of the Del Rois Bar in Butte on May 2. When they arrived, bartenders had already duct taped Gardino’s hands and feet together.

Thursday morning, Trooper Ronald Hayes, the lead investigator on the case, said the response to the call ratcheted up the moment troopers heard about the gun.

“The potential for someone getting seriously injured or killed increases greatly when we know there is a gun involved.”

Prosecutor Trina Sears asked how long it took him to get from the troopers Palmer Post to the bar that sits close to where the Old Glenn Highway crosses the Knik River.

“At about 110 miles per hour? About five or six minutes,” Hayes said.

After Gardino was taken out of the bar, Hayes said he started talking to various witnesses. About half of those he talked to had been drinking. Neither of the bartenders interviewed had been.

Hayes described Del Rois as “a neighborhood bar,” and its clientele as “established drinkers.” The witnesses he talked to were mostly “laid-back” and “matter-of-fact.”

“I wouldn’t characterize it as a particular problem bar,” he said, but a couple weeks after Gardino’s arrest, troopers did work a serious car wreck involving a person who’d been thrown out of the bar.

Gardino’s attorney, Jon-Marc Petersen, used his questions to cast doubts on witness assertions that his client was the aggressor.

He asked Hayes about Gardino’s injuries, pointing out swelling on the man’s face, a possible broken nose and a bloody mouth.

“Did you become aware of whether or not he had lost consciousness?” Petersen asked.

“I don’t remember that,” Hayes replied.

Petersen also asked about how many people had held Gardino down and bound his limbs.

“That would be a total of three people … who, quote unquote, helped subdue Mr. Gardino?” the defense attorney asked.

Hayes confirmed that was the case.

Hayes also said the witnesses all seemed to know each other. It’s a neighborhood bar, after all.

Gardino, on the other hand, appeared to be a newcomer.

“I wouldn’t say it was oil and water but he wasn’t in their peer group,” the trooper said.

“Did you ask them whether or not they punched my client?” Petersen asked.

“No I did not,” Hayes replied.

Petersen also let on who he believed were the aggressors when he asked Hayes if it would be a crime had the patrons held Gardino down and punched him. Hayes said not necessarily. Petersen countered asking whether it would be a crime if they’d punched Gardino while he was unconscious.

“Ninety-nine point nine percent of the time if the person’s unconscious, yeah,” Hayes said.

Petersen is one of two attorneys who make up the Denali Law Group. Wednesday, his partner, Richard Payne, said Gardino’s case went to trial mainly because of the deal the district attorney’s office had offered.