Details of Big Lake shooting emerge

PALMER — A man who fired five shots at a neighbor in Big Lake last week was apparently upset with his landlord, court documents show.

Brandon Schatz, 38, was arrested at around 10 p.m., Thursday. Alaska State Trooper Michael Johnson recounts the events leading up to that arrest in a sworn statement he filed in court.

Johnson writes that he responded an apartment building on Musk Ox Road and immediately saw Schatz standing outside of a garage holding a black handgun. He put Schatz in his patrol car and started doing interviews.

Johnson said he talked to a resident of the complex, who told him that Schatz had been arguing with the landlord and both had hit each other.

“The landlord … temporarily restrained Schatz until he calmed down,” and then let Schatz go and went home.

Schatz apparently followed him there with a gun, but came back to the apartments soon after. He went into the garage where a neighbor was sitting and demanded that neighbor get the landlord on the phone and get him back to the apartment building.

Schatz was three feet away from his neighbor, yelling at him, when he fired off five rounds.

The neighbor said he was looking down when the shots went off and “was in fear for his life as Schatz fired at him, narrowly missing his head each time,” Johnson writes.

Johnson also talked to another neighbor who told him that prior to the fight with the landlord, Schatz had been fighting with his wife and that she had left because of it. That second neighbor said she heard the shots, but thought they were fireworks. Later, Schatz came upstairs and told her everything was OK.

Johnson also talked to the landlord, who confirmed the bit about Schatz leaving the apartment and coming to his house before the altercation in the garage.

Schatz, in his conversation with Trooper Pete Steen, said he fired his gun outside the garage at the direction of a home across the street. Johnson writes that a breath analysis test on Schatz returned a result of .20. The legal limit for driving is .08.

Schatz was arrested on charges of weapons misconduct and assault. At his first court appearance on Friday, his bail was set at $10,000 and he was ordered to find a third party to watch him before he could be released. As of Monday afternoon he was still listed in an online database as an inmate of the Mat-Su Pre-Trial Facility.

Contact Andrew Wellner at 352-2270 or andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com.