Troopers: Pickup was driving toward officer when driver shot, killed

WASILLA — The shots that killed a 52-year-old Wasilla man Sunday night were fired only after he drove his pickup at a police officer, Alaska State Troopers report.

Troopers identified the driver who was killed as Gordon E. Samel. Alaska history remembers Samel as one of the three men in 1992 who found the body of Chris McCandless in Bus 142 while out moose hunting. McCandless was the subject of a book and later a movie titled “Into the Wild.”

According to an AST press release, dispatchers received a report at 8:37 p.m. of a possible drunken driver. The caller said two drunk men were in a white Chevy pickup in a parking lot at the intersection of the Parks and Palmer-Wasilla highways.

Wasilla police and troopers were dispatched. Troopers were first to find the suspect vehicle at 8:44 p.m. “in a parking lot at 1501 East Parks Highway,” according to the press release. That is the address of Fred Meyer.

The trooper parked and walked up to the pickup and knocked on the window.

“It drove off and circled around several small businesses in the area,” Troopers report. “The pickup then entered the Parks Highway, driving south, for a short distance in the northbound lanes before driving over a median into the southbound lanes.”

The chase then proceeded onto South Hermon Road and then East Whispering Woods Drive before the pickup turned completely around at the intersection of Whispering Woods and Seward Meridian Parkway. That’s when two AST cars and a Wasilla police vehicle surrounded it.

“As one Alaska State Trooper and one Wasilla Police Department officer approached the pickup on foot, the driver of the pickup placed the vehicle in reverse and began backing directly toward the Wasilla Police Department officer,” troopers report in the press statement. “One Alaska State Trooper and the Wasilla Police Department officer fired their handguns at the vehicle. The driver of the vehicle died on scene.”

An adult male passenger — who troopers do not name because he is not charged with any crime — received a non-life-threatening injury to his arm and was released.

Reached Monday, Wasilla mayor Verne Rupright declined to provide further details of the incident, saying that troopers are in charge of the investigation.

Troopers say that AST investigators and the Wasilla Police Department are investigating officers’ use of force.

Rupright said Wasilla officers receive the same police training as troopers and other state law enforcement.

“They all have the same certification from the same academy,” he said.

So-called “officer-involved shootings” are relatively rare in the Valley and generally fatal for the person fired upon. The last one appears to have happened May 23, 2013, when troopers tried to arrest Theodule LeJeune but wound up shooting and killing the 58-year-old Sutton man.

As per policy for both departments in these kinds of shootings, both officers were placed on administrative leave. Troopers say that neither will be named publicly until Wednesday evening.

As is also policy, AST investigators will, at the end of their investigation, give a report to the Office of Special Prosecutions and Appeals in the state Department of Law, which will make the final decision as to whether the use of force was justified.

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