Trooper recalls bullets flying at Voorhis’ home

PALMER — Trooper Nathan Bucknall testified Monday that when he was ordered to enter Donald Voorhis’ Talkeetna trailer Sept. 10, 2006, his supervisors thought it might be easy to grab Voorhis and end a three-day standoff.

“They believed he was sitting on the ground right next to the front door,” Bucknall said at Voorhis’ trial.

That wasn’t the case.

As Bucknall went in, he realized Voorhis wasn’t anywhere near the door. A flash-bang grenade filled the trailer with smoke, Bucknall said. He couldn’t see anything.

Then the shots came. Bucknall said he heard four come at him from the other end of the trailer’s hallway.

“I just knew he was down there somewhere and he was firing at us,” Bucknall said, so he returned fire, squeezing off five to seven rounds from his semi-automatic rifle. Another trooper, Ben Mank, fired once from a pistol, Bucknall testified.

Then they heard a door shut and heard Voorhis talking, Bucknall testified. So they retreated.

“I didn’t want to be sitting in a gunfight down a hallway,” Bucknall explained. “It’s a bad situation to be in.”

With Voorhis still inside, the standoff lasted into that afternoon, when troopers used a bulldozer to take down two walls of Voorhis’ trailer. Then exposed, Voorhis was arrested, charged with three misdemeanors and 10 felonies, including three counts of attempted murder. He’s standing trial on the attempted murder charges.

The saga began Sept. 8, 2006 when Talkeetna Trooper Sgt. Walter Blajeski went to arrest Voorhis on outstanding warrants. Voorhis pointed a gun at Blajeski, the sergeant testified last week, and Blajeski fled, calling for backup.

Blajeski had been out to talk to Voorhis two days prior after a neighbor reported Voorhis took a shot at him, but Voorhis ran from troopers and they didn’t find him.

Monday, Voorhis entered his second week of a trial before Superior Court Judge Eric Smith expected to last until at least Friday.

Bucknall said after he exited the trailer he carried a video camera instead of a gun for the remainder of the standoff.

Palmer District Attorney Roman Kalytiak asked Bucknall if his superiors’ decision to relegate him to video duty was the right one.

“I’d just been in a real bad situation and I didn’t want to be in another. I’m a single dad and I have a son,” Bucknall said.

In his opening statements, Herman Walker, who, along with Lee DeGrazia is representing Voorhis, said the evidence will show Voorhis never intended to murder anyone. He described his client as not quite right mentally and law enforcement actions as more than were necessary to get Voorhis to surrender.

Kalytiak argued Voorhis did intend murder when he fired first at his neighbor and then at troopers entering his home. He said the troopers did what they had to during the standoff, noting that to do nothing would likely have been to put the public at further danger.

Voorhis’ trial continues today.