ANCHORAGE — A 29-year-old Alaska man opened fire on a Fairbanks police officer, took his gun, stomped on his head and taunted him as the officer stood and tried to get away, state prosecutors said in a criminal complaint filed Wednesday.
Anthony George Jenkins-Alexie was charged Wednesday with attempted murder in the shooting early Sunday of Sgt. Allen Brandt, an 11-year veteran of the Fairbanks Police Department.
Jenkins-Alexie also is charged with six other felonies: assault, theft of a firearm, theft of a patrol car, evidence tampering, possession of a firearm as a felon and firing a gun at a building.
Brandt is recovering at an Anchorage hospital.
Police arrested Jenkins-Alexie on Tuesday walking in the same neighborhood east of downtown Fairbanks where the shooting occurred.
When police searched his home, they found a confession written on three pages of notebook paper that included the model number of the gun used to shoot Brandt.
As police interviewed Jenkins-Alexie, prosecutors said, he confessed to the shooting and asked for a pen and paper. In a letter to Brandt, he apologized.
“I am deeply sorry. I owe you an apology … you … your wife …. & your kids,” Jenkins-Alexie wrote. “I am mental just a little bit. … You didn’t deserve it. I was seeking vengeance from FPD for taking my relatives lives and closest friends. I was wrong.”
FPD is the Fairbanks Police Department.
The incident started shortly after midnight Sunday when Brandt responded in his patrol car to calls of shots fired and a man yelling.
Brandt’s dashboard camera records him driving east and slowing as a man approaches on the sidewalk. As the patrol car stops, the man moves his right hand toward his coat pocket but continues out of the picture.
Seconds later, the man, gripping a silver handgun with both hands, runs around the front of the car.
Prosecutors said Brandt opened the driver’s door and tried to take cover behind the patrol car and was shot. Brandt fired back but fell. He was struck six times: twice in the right leg, once in the left leg and once in the right foot. A grazing wound hit his right knee. Body armor stopped a shot to the chest, but at least two bullet fragments entered his right eye.
As Brandt lay on the ground, prosecutors said, Jenkins-Alexie approached and took his gun from his hand. He tried removing ammunition from Brandt’s duty belt but could not. He then stomped on Brandt’s head.
Brandt struggled to stand and tried to get away. Jenkins-Alexie followed, mocking him, then got into the patrol car and drove away, prosecutors said.
A rear tire on the car was flat, and the car was abandoned two blocks away.
Brandt called for assistance on his radio.
Fairbanks police arrested Jenkins-Alexie on Tuesday morning as he walked in the same neighborhood where Brandt was shot.
Jenkins-Alexie has lengthy criminal history in Anchorage and Fairbanks tied to alcohol consumption. But he has just one previous felony conviction.
Court records indicate Jenkins-Alexie’s adult encounters with police began in 2007, when he was charged at age 19 with criminal trespass and consuming alcohol as a minor. He pleaded no contest to the trespass charge. The charge of consuming alcohol as a minor was dismissed. However, he pleaded no contest to two more charges of consuming alcohol as a minor later that year in Fairbanks and Anchorage.
He pleaded no contest to misdemeanor theft in Fairbanks in 2008. He pleaded no contest in 2009 to misdemeanor assault. In 2010, he pleaded guilty to driving with a suspended or revoked license in Seward.
He was arrested in March and April 2013 in Anchorage for driving under the influence of alcohol and convicted after guilty or no contest pleas. Arrested again in June 2013 in Anchorage, he was convicted of felony driving under the influence.
He pleaded guilty in February 2015 in Anchorage to a misdemeanor escape charge.
Alexie-Jenkins referenced alcohol in his apology letter to Brandt. After heavy drinking, he said, he snapped.
“My violence caused you and your family nightmares. I’m deeply sorry. Choose a safer line of work. Be there for your loved one,” he wrote.
Prosecutors said Brandt likely will lose sight in his left eye.
