Two neighbors in Haines have had an ongoing dispute about the actual property line between them. Last week, that dispute escalated to talks of a “shoot out,” then a weapon fired at a vehicle, according to an Alaska State Trooper’s report.
A Juneau grand jury indicted Jay J. Linhart, 58, on four felony counts of third-degree assault stemming from an Aug. 30 encounter near the Klehini River close to Linhart’s home. According to a report and investigation by Alaska State Trooper Andrew Neason, Linhart confronted three men and one young boy near his property that evening and threatened to shoot one man in the group — his neighbor Robert Harris — and the tires of the Jeep they were traveling in if they didn’t leave immediately.
The men in the group told Trooper Neason that Linhart approached them while wearing a rifle across his right shoulder and a revolver in a holster at his side, according to the police complaint. A friend of Linhart’s who was with him when he made the alleged threat said Linhart said they needed to leave because “there was going to be a shoot out.”
One of the men in the group told Neason he saw Linhart take aim at the group’s Jeep. The group of men crouched behind the engine of the Jeep, then the sound of a weapon fired was followed by air escaping a tire.
The men then fled in various directions, Neason reported.
Linhart initially refused to leave his home when Neason and officers from the Haines Borough Police Department investigated the area, the police report states. Neason reported that Linhart was not armed with a firearm when investigators approached him, but he did have a medium-sized hunting knife with him. He denied the shooting when police arrested him.
Linhart made his first felony appearance before Juneau District Court Judge Keith Levy on Aug. 31 for an initial arraignment, but a second arraignment in Superior Court will follow. That court date was not updated in online records by the end of the business day on Wednesday.
Second indictment
• Jeffrey S. Roberts, 32, was also indicted Wednesday for felony driving under the influence in the Juneau area on Aug. 5; he’d been convicted twice before for drunken driving in the past 10 years. That is a class C felony punishable by up to five years in prison and/or a $50,000 fine. Roberts is scheduled to appear in Juneau Superior Court for his felony arraignment Sept. 19.
