Man shot during trooper investigation sentenced on weapons charges

PALMER — A man shot in the elbow when Alaska State Troopers responded to a reported home invasion has pleaded guilty to possessing a gun while intoxicated. And he now admits his report of a Jan. 21 home invasion was bogus.

Russell Tanner, 57, was ordered to serve 30 days in jail, give up the guns troopers seized and get grief counseling.

In an interview, Tanner said he lost his daughter to suicide in September 2011.

“I just fell on my knees and you start struggling with that pain, that guilt, what could I have done different?” he said, recounting the day he heard the news.

He said the grief just compounded pain he already had inside, but didn’t realize, and his life spiraled out of control.

“I ran into this meth, this hideous drug, and it just overwhelmed me,” Tanner said.

But Tanner said he’s cleaned up his life since he was shot and wants to apologize to the community.

“I do want to just say to the public, I fell down, I made a mistake and I apologize,” he said.

According to an affidavit Alaska State Troopers Investigator Mike Peltier filed in the case against Tanner, the incident in the early afternoon of Jan. 21 began with a 911 call from Tanner who said a bunch of people with guns were surrounding his property. His property is on Wolverine Avenue, which is north of Bogard Road in the Seldon Road area.

In a later interview Tanner told troopers, the figures he saw were people working on the power poles and that they had “grass on their heads, white and camo(uflage) clothes and were setting up an ambush.”

Tanner allegedly told troopers he’d taken a couple of pain pills — Oxycodone and Roxycodone — and had a beer for lunch.

Peltier wrote that Tanner told him that “he took his wife to the basement and was armed with his 12-gauge shotgun and four rounds of ammunition.”

The woman in question later clarified that they are not married. In the interview, Tanner referred to her as his girlfriend.

Tanner told troopers he fired several rounds and might have killed some of the intruders, but wasn’t sure as they might have been wearing body armor.

At the time, troopers reported that after Tanner and his girlfriend exited the building, a search of the home found no one else inside.

After firing those rounds at the intruders he believed were in the home, Tanner was out of ammunition, so he went upstairs to grab a rifle.

“Tanner told me he looked out the window and saw the trooper’s car in the driveway and at least a dozen perpetrators. Tanner stated he ran out onto the second story deck, threw his gun over the rail and jumped off. When Tanner landed on the ground he said he heard the trooper say, ‘hot range, hit the deck, live ammunition.’ Tanner said he heard two pops and felt a sting. Tanner said he dove under the porch,” Peltier wrote.

The AST account of what happened differs slightly in that they say Tanner was armed when he leapt from the balcony and that troopers fired one shot rather than two. Troopers also have thus far not confirmed definitively that it was a trooper bullet that struck Tanner’s elbow.

Tanner’s attorney, Jon-Marc Petersen, said he has interviewed his client’s neighbors and they corroborate Tanner’s account, that he was unarmed when he hit the ground and that troopers fired two shots.

Troopers identified the officer who fired his weapon as David Eastwood-Kolezar and have said an investigation is ongoing into whether his actions were within the law and whether his shot is the one that wounded Tanner.

Tanner said troopers might have ordered him to the ground or otherwise shouted commands he didn’t hear over the wind on that blustery day. But he believes it was a trooper bullet that winged him.

“I heard ‘pop, pop’ and watched my elbow explode,” is how Tanner describes what happened that day.

Tanner’s girlfriend also spoke to troopers that day, telling them she had had medical issues earlier and that she also saw intruders, though hers were dressed in “wolves clothing.”

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