ANCHORAGE - State troopers are releasing new details about an officer-involved shooting that happened Sunday night in Wasilla.
Trooper spokeswoman Beth Ipsen said it started with a citizen’s call to Mat-Su dispatch that two men were driving drunk in a pickup truck.
The caller was able to provide a license plate number, according to a Monday trooper report. Troopers found the truck a short time later in the parking lot of the Wasilla Fred Meyer store. Ipsen said when an officer went to knock on the window, the driver sped off, at one point going the wrong way on the Parks Highway.
Officers pursued the truck, which eventually came to a stop at the intersection of East Whispering Woods Drive and the Seward Meridian Parkway. Ipsen said the shooting happened when the driver put his truck in reverse and started backing up directly toward a Wasilla police officer who was approaching on foot.
Both the police officer and a Wasilla trooper fired their handguns, Ipsen said. Gordon E. Samel, 52, of Wasilla was pronounced dead at the scene.
According to preliminary autopsy results, Samel died from bullet wounds, the report said. His next-of-kin have been notified.
The passenger was treated for non-life-threatening injuries and was released.
The officers’ names who fired their weapons will be released Wednesday evening. Ipsen said a full investigation will follow. The State Department of Law will make the final determination as to whether the use of deadly force was justified.