Suspect with gun who chased man charged with kidnapping

PALMER — A man who was reportedly chasing another man through a parking lot with a gun now faces one of the most serious felony charges on the books. But not, as it turns out, for the armed foot chase part of this saga.

According to court documents, Jeremy Lee Sanderlin’s actions first came to the attention of the Palmer Police Department at 7:53 p.m., Aug. 19. He was reportedly chasing a man through the parking lot of an apartment building at 330 S. Cobb Street with a gun.

Sgt. Shayne La Croix writes in court documents he knows Sanderlin and spotted him in a vehicle in the parking lot of the Fred Meyer gas station.

Sanderlin had a gun in the car, but told La Croix it wasn’t his. The story didn’t check out though — La Croix called the guy Sanderlin said owned the gun and he told La Croix he’d sold it two days prior to Sanderlin.

Meanwhile, Sanderlin’s ex-girlfriend told Sgt. Dwayne Shelton she saw Sanderlin go after the man.

“Sanderlin had arrived at her apartment and gotten into an argument over (the man he later chased). She stated Sanderlin said he was going to put a bullet in (the man) and demanded she get in the car and take him to where (the man) lived,” La Croix wrote.

When she refused, the woman told La Croix that “he motioned to a silver revolver in his waistband and told her if she did not get into the car and show him where (the man) lived, he would make it so she never saw her kids again.”

Afraid Sanderlin would shoot her, the woman led him to the apartment building at 330 S. Cobb.

“While en route to the apartment complex, Sanderlin told her she needed to do what he told her. He made a gun motion with his thumb and pointer finger, put it to his head, and made a shooting noise,” La Croix wrote.

Once they got to the apartment building, the woman ran to another woman’s apartment, told her Sanderlin had a gun and to call the police.

Sanderlin, meanwhile, denied threatening his ex-girlfriend and the man he allegedly chased. He said he never had the gun on him, that it had been in the car the whole time.

He was arrested and jailed at the Mat-Su Pre-Trial Facility, where he remained as of Wednesday afternoon. The charges he faces are: drunken driving, assault with a deadly weapon, being a felon in possession of a weapon, and kidnapping.

All but the drunken driving charge are felonies. The most serious is the kidnapping charge, which appears to relate to forcing the woman to show him where the man he wanted to threaten lived.

Kidnapping is an unclassified felony, putting it in the same category, in Alaska law at least, as murder.

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