The final 16 minutes Steven Kissack’s life start as a calm discussion with an approaching officer about a fight the previous day while sitting in a doorway. After about six minutes Kissack suddenly stands up with a knife he’s playing with and tells the officer to back up.
During the subsequent 10-minute standoff with multiple officers he’s approached by at least two seeming friends who appear to try to talk him down. At one point Kissack hugs one of the people and says “call my sister if they kill me.” After he’s fatally shot, the other person he was talking to tries to approach him in tears and is roughly thrown to the ground by an officer.
The bodycam footage from Juneau Police Department officer Lee Phelps, released Tuesday evening along with the bodycam videos from three other officers and a rooftop cellphone video by a member of the public, shows the entire encounter between Kissack and officers on July 15 that led to him being fatally shot. The faces and other identifying details of witnesses are edited out of the videos.
The state Office of Special Prosecutions also released the results of an investigation Tuesday that found “law enforcement officers were legally justified in their use of deadly force.”
Steven Kissack stands up and orders Juneau Police Department officer Lee Phelps to move away about six minutes into an encounter on Front Street on July 15. (Screenshot from Phelps’s bodycam video)
Kissack, 35, who lived on the streets of downtown Juneau for many years with his dog Juno, shows many aspects of his persona after being approached by Phelps at about 1:10 p.m. in modest rainfall. In a typical moment for him, Kissack is sitting in a covered doorway while toying with a long-blade knife he’s frequently seen with.
“What’s happening Steve?” Phelps says in greeting. “Question for you — can you just put the knife down?”
“No, that’s all right,” Kissack replies without hostility, continuing to toy with the knife while talking with Phelps.
According to JPD, Kissack was approached as a suspect in an assault that occurred the previous day.
“You had a fight with the guy over at the Marine View Apartment,” Phelps says. “I just wanted to get your side of the story.”
Kissack, during the next few minutes, says there was a confrontation with a “guy yelling at me.”
“We got into a scuffle,” Kissack says. “I tried to get away from him. He was right in my face.”
Phelps asks repeatedly if Kissack had thrown a punch, to which he says “I don’t think so. If I did I felt threatened.”
Steven Kissack is embraced by a friend about nine minutes into a confrontation with police on Front Street on July 15. (Screenshot from JPD bodycam video)
The situation starts to get more hostile after about five minutes when Phelps says “I saw this video footage and it showed you punched him” and initiated the fight.
Kissack responds by asking about video footage from a previous incident where he was accused of assaulting an officer, asserting his innocence in that situation and asking “isn’t that more important?” Phelps, still calm and trying to return to the current incident, states “just so you know charges are going to be filed against you for assault.”
The key moment in the situation turning into a multiple-officer standoff occurs at about the 6:15 mark of Phelps’ video when Kissack suddenly stands up while holding his knife.
“I don’t like the way you’re looking at me,” he tells Phelps challengingly. “Back up — you understand?”
At that point a gun is visible in Phelps’ right hand and the officer — after making a quick “10-69” call on his police radio — tells Kissack again to put the knife down.
“Steve, stop. You are under arrest,” Phelps says.
At about that moment, at 6:45 on the video, police sirens can be heard approaching and Juno howling in apparent reaction to them.
“Steve, you’re going to get shot, put the knife down,” Phelps says again.
Similar shouts start coming from other officers, at which point Kissack responds “no, you’re under arrest. I’m serious to the death.”
At about the nine-minute mark on the video a person, smaller than Kissack, approaches. They exchange words and embrace.
“Call my sister if they kill me,” he tells his friend.
In a louder voice to those gathered, Kissack says “I’m always ready to die.”
A woman talks to Steven Kissack, defying orders by police not to do so, during a confrontation on Front Street on July 15. (Screenshot from JPD bodycam video)
At about the 11:30 mark Kissack picks up a backpack with his belongings and straps it over the front of his body while the exchange of words continues between him and officers. At about the 13:25 mark a woman approaches, disregarding the shouts of officers to stay away, and she and Kissack would talk for the next couple of minutes despite the continued shouts from police.
“I used to work for homeless people, he’s not going to hit me,” the woman shouts at the officers at one point.
She puts her arm on him as they talk — with her admonishing his ongoing threats to harm the officers — and Kissack says at one point “I’m probably going to die.”
At about the 16-minute mark he walks away from the woman and onto the street, and the first of multiple non-lethal projectiles are fired at Kissack as a shout of “40 up” is heard from an officer (a reference to non-lethal rounds). Kissack loosens the pack from around his shoulders as officers continue shouts of “Stop right there — I’ll shoot you” and “Stay alive! Stay alive!”
“Do it — do it!” Kissack says in a raised voice as he’s hit by more non-lethal shots, dropping his pack and gesturing toward the officers, holding his knife while standing on the street. “Kill me.”
Steven Kissack is seen holding a knife seconds before he is fatally shot July 15 by officers in this screenshot from bodycam footage from Juneau Police Department officer Lee Phelps that was made public Tuesday. (Screenshot from JPD bodycam video)
At the point Phelps quickly says “get behind the car” twice to a fellow officer, followed a second later by gunfire that can’t be seen from the officer’s bodycam. The rooftop video indicates Kissack started running toward JPD officer Terry Allen when the fatal shots were fired by JPD officer Sgt. Chris Gifford and Alaska Wildlife Trooper Sgt. Branden Forst.
Kissack’s body after being shot is visible at the 16:20 mark on Phelps’s bodycam video.
“Shots fired, suspect down,” an officer says. A moment later “He’s got the knife still. Kick it out of his hands.”
The woman who tried to intervene, and is carrying a cane, approaches Kissack crying and cursing officers. One of them throws her roughly to the ground with an order of “Get back!” Phelps is seen dragging her to the sidewalk and, after she cries out for her phone laying in the middle of the street, he picks it up and returns it to her as the video ends.
• Contact Mark Sabbatini at mark.sabbatini@juneauempire.com or (907) 957-2306.
