Man threatens trooper with sledgehammer

PALMER — In his narrative of events, Alaska State Trooper Joseph Hess implies that only his stun gun managed to keep him from getting cracked over the head with a sledgehammer.

According to Hess’ affidavit filed in the case against Steven Allen Walstrom, 25, the call to respond to Pinnacle Mountain Drive at 2:10 p.m., Oct. 7 was described by dispatchers as a possible suicide attempt.

“Steven Walstrom had consumed valium and alcohol (and) was now laying on the ground,” Hess writes. “Upon my arrival, I knocked on the front door and received no response. I opened the unlocked door and heard a woman screaming. I announced, ‘Alaska State Troopers’ several times while making entry and I observed several chairs knocked over in the dining room.”

When he rounded a corner, he spotted Walstrom standing near his mother with a 2-pound sledgehammer “raised above his head in what appeared to be a striking position,” Hess wrote.

Hess writes that he ordered Walstrom to drop the hammer “several times and he began walking towards me with the sledgehammer still raised in a striking position and refused to put it down.”

Hess writes that he retreated around a corner and Walstrom followed him.

“At that time I was in immediate fear that I was about to be attacked by Steven with the sledgehammer and deployed my Taser, which caused Steven to be incapacitated long enough to be placed in handcuffs,” Hess writes.

After he was under arrest, Walstrom talked to Hess, saying that he didn’t know troopers were inside the house and that he’d picked up the hammer so children couldn’t get it.

“At the time of the call, (I) did not observe any children in the residence,” according to Hess.

Walstrom was jailed for disorderly conduct and felony assault. At a bail hearing Oct. 16, his bail was set at $1,000 and Superior Court Judge Kari Kristiansen removed the requirement that he find someone to watch him, but did say that he needed to get his mental health assessed within a week of his release from jail. Jail records show he posted bond and got out the next day.

Contact Andrew Wellner at 352-2270

or andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com.