Public Safety

An Italian man is missing after falling into a hole in the ice on the Mendenhall Glacier on Tuesday. Juneau search and rescue responders have called off the search.

The Alaska State Troopers have not named the man and are working to connect with his family. 

According to troopers, the man was on the glacier Tuesday afternoon with two travel companions. Troopers did not say where on the glacier they were, but a dispatch says the man initially fell into a stream and was pushed by the rushing water into the hole in the ice. The people with him said they couldn’t see him after that. 

Juneau Mountain Rescue attempted to locate him, but found the hole was filled with rushing water. They decided it would be too dangerous to try to locate the man.

At least three people have died in the backcountry around Juneau this summer. On Saturday, an Arizona resident was reported missing and his body was discovered on Monday near the Mendenhall Glacier. He is believed to have died from injuries suffered during a fall.  

This story has been updated to reflect that officials did not say why the man was on the glacier. 

A woman accused of stabbing her husband to death in the Southeast Alaska community of Metlakatla was arrested early Saturday morning.

Court records show that Jade Jordan, 33, charged with one count of criminally negligent homicide in the death of Kevin Jordan, 36.

In a charging document against Jordan, police said when they arrived at the Jordans’ residence Saturday, they saw Jade Jordan standing in the driveway with dried blood on her. Her husband was lying face down in the driveway with stab wounds. Medics took him to the local medical clinic, where he was later pronounced dead.

The couple’s two children were home at the time.

Alaska State Troopers from nearby Ketchikan assisted in the investigation Sunday. They said Jordan told them that she and her husband had been drinking and were arguing and pushing each other that night. That’s when troopers said she stabbed him near the left clavicle with a kitchen paring knife.

The public defender’s office in Ketchikan is representing Jordan. Staff did not immediately return a request for comment.

A preliminary hearing is set for Friday in the Ketchikan Courthouse.

After a week of deliberation, the jury continues to consider the evidence in a sexual assault trial against a former Juneau chiropractor. As of Friday afternoon, the jurors had yet to return a verdict. 

Twelve former patients accused Jeffrey Fultz of sexual assault under the guise of medical care. They say the incidents took place during medical appointments between 2014 and 2020 while he was employed at Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium in Juneau. 

Fultz’s defense argued that he was offering legitimate medical care to these patients.

The jury has been deliberating 13 counts of sexual assault and one count of sexual harassment against Fultz. 

When the trial started, there were two more counts of sexual assault associated with one alleged victim/complainant, but presiding Judge Larry Woolford declared a mistrial for those counts. Woolford said the state failed to disclose new evidence related to those charges.

Those charges can still be tried if state prosecutors choose to retry them.

Jury deliberation follows standard work hours, and will resume Tuesday after Labor Day. There is no time limit on how long the jury can deliberate. 

If the jury convicts Fultz on any of the counts, there will be a sentencing hearing. That’s when Judge Woolford will determine Fultz’s penalty for these convictions. Convictions in sexual assault cases can lead to years in prison. 

The Juneau Police Department released the body-worn camera footage on Friday of a violent arrest by an officer in July. The video was released just a day after the officer involved resigned from his position. 

Officer Brandon LeBlanc slammed a man to the ground during the July 30 arrest. The man was medevacked out of town for a head injury. Juneau Police Chief Derek Bos said the officer’s conduct during the arrest did not align with the Juneau Police Department’s policy or values.

“I do not believe this incident is reflective of JPD and who we are. I think this is more of an isolated event,” he said. 

The department released the footage in compliance with a new ordinance passed by the Juneau Assembly this spring. It mandates that the department must release body-worn camera footage no more than 30 days after a city police officer’s actions cause serious injury. This is the first time the ordinance has been invoked.

LeBlanc started working for JPD last fall. The department placed him on paid administrative leave following the arrest. He resigned on Thursday. City Manager Katie Koester said his resignation reflects the seriousness of what occurred.

“I think that what we would just want to underscore and acknowledge is how painful this event has been for our community,” she said. 

Koester said the arrest has prompted a larger review of policing in Juneau. The city is internally investigating the incident. It plans to co-host a community dialogue with the Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska about the community’s relationship with law enforcement. 

“We have an obligation to uphold the standards that our community expects from us,” she said. “That doesn’t mean just doing an investigation and reviewing the facts, but it means following up with our community and having that conversation.”

A video taken by a witness of the arrest circulated widely online last month and prompted a protest of the officer’s actions. The video showed LeBlanc attempting to handcuff a man before slamming him to the ground. The man, whose family has publicly identified him as Christopher Williams, Jr., appeared to lie unconscious for the remainder of the video. 

The body-worn camera footage released on Friday shows the incident from multiple perspectives and includes audio. In the video, the man does not appear to comply when LeBlanc asks him to put his hands behind his back. 

In the video, LeBlanc describes his actions to another officer as a “suplex type” maneuver. A suplex is a move in sports wrestling. 

LeBlanc worked as an officer in Louisiana before Juneau. While there, court documents show that a man sued LeBlanc in 2016 for excessive force and battery, among other accusations. A jury found LeBlanc not guilty.

Following the arrest, the Juneau department requested an independent investigation by an external agency to review LeBlanc’s use of force, which is still ongoing. It also announced that the department will participate in cultural sensitivity training. The family of the injured man says he plans to sue the department.

Chief Bos said the department is committed to working with the community to grow transparency and trust following the incident. 

“I would say moving forward from this, obviously, we can always learn and do better — if we don’t, that’s a fault,” he said. “Our intention is to look at this and say, ‘How can we become better partners with the community, and what does that look like?’”

Once the external investigation is finished, the state’s Office of Special Prosecutions will review the case to determine if LeBlanc was justified in his response. 

A haunting crime story and an Alaska Native legend are at the center of a new documentary that will premiere on Hulu on Sept. 4.

“Blood & Myth” looks into a real-life crime case that happened in Kiana, in Northwest Alaska, over a decade ago.

“It’s all very much rooted in reality,” said James Dommek Jr., the executive producer of the new documentary. “Incredible story of survival and legends and violence and culture.”

Teddy Kyle Smith is an Iñupiaq actor from Kiana who starred in “On the Ice,” a 2011 drama about two Utqiagvik teenagers. In 2012, Alaska State Troopers were investigating the suspicious death of Smith’s mother when he fled to a cabin and had a violent encounter with two hunters. He was later convicted of attempted murder.

In court, Smith said that Iñukuns, or Little People, guided his actions.

Dommek has been intrigued by this incident for years. When he worked at KNBA in 2016, that case came to mind when a coworker asked him if he knew any Alaska stories that would make for a good podcast.

Dommek described Smith’s story in his 2019 bestselling audiobook, “Midnight Son.” The new Hulu documentary is a movie adaptation of the audiobook, where he is also a part of the narrative, trying to uncover what happened in Kiana.

Dommek grew up in Kotzebue hearing about Iñukuns, evil creatures in the high Arctic. They came up in local stories and in conversations with Dommek’s great grandfather, Paul Monroe, who was an Inupiaq storyteller known as Palangun. Dommek said that Iñukuns exist in various legends from Inuit groups across the globe – in Siberia, Alaska, Canada and Greenland.

“If all of us had the same story, and we’re also spread out, it might have an air of truth to it, and my great grandfather’s stories were no different,” he said. “That was one of the big draws to the story for me.”

In the film, Dommek said he also wanted to highlight the issue of justice in rural Alaska, where the state struggles to provide a consistent law enforcement presence.

“Blood & Myth” is a true crime documentary told through an Indigenous perspective, which is rare in today’s entertainment industry, Dommek said.

“There’s the type of story I wanted to see, and no one was making it,” he said. “Everyone else is invited to listen and watch, but at the end of the day, it’s something I made for me.”

With a few exceptions, most of the filming took place in Alaska, including Kotzebue and Kiana. Dommek said it was important for him to make the story look and feel authentic.

“I took my crew up to Kiana, skeleton crew – four wheelers, and boats and village dogs and all that,” he said. “I was like, ‘We’re going to do this, and I’m an Alaskan making an Alaskan story, we can’t fake this.'”

Dommek is also a musician who has played in such Alaska bands as Pamyua

and Medium Build. He has worked in film production, but being an executive producer in his own film is a first. He said he wondered if it was his story to tell but decided to do it after talking to his family and elders in his community. He said he wanted it to be a story about staying true to your culture.

“You pull back all the layers in this story, and at the real heart of the documentary, the main message is, don’t forget who you are,” he said. “Remembering your roots, where you come from, and what makes our people strong, and what has made us survive in a place as harsh as Alaska for this long.”

The film will be streamed on Hulu in the U.S. and Disney+ internationally.

The U.S. Coast Guard rescued a pilot after his small plane crashed near Haines on Sunday.

Chief Petty Officer Travis Magee told KCAW that around 8:30 a.m. the Coast Guard received a signal from the emergency locator transmitter of a two seat, single engine airplane over the Chilkat Range, approximately 35 miles south of Haines.

“The Coast Guard reached out to the Haines airport, who confirmed that there was an aircraft matching that description to the two seat, single engine airplane that had departed earlier that morning, but it had not returned,” said Magee.

Around 10:30 a.m., a 5-person helicopter crew from Air Station Sitka located the pilot and overturned aircraft near the Endicott River. Magee said the pilot walked away from the accident unscathed.

“So we’re very thankful that this case resulted in the way that it did, with this individual having no reported back injuries,” said Magee.

The helicopter crew transported the pilot to the Juneau airport. The pilot met with emergency medical services, but he did not request any assistance from them, and was released shortly afterwards.

This is a developing story and may be updated.