State finds use of force justified in fatal shooting of East Anchorage woman by SWAT officer

A government investigation released Tuesday concludes that an Anchorage police sergeant's use of force was justified when he shot and killed a 58-year-old woman during a SWAT team standoff in June.

The Office of Special Prosecutions report sent to Anchorage Police Chief Sean Case on Sunday found that no charges will be filed against Sergeant Jonathan Butler in connection with the death of Lisa Fordyce-Blair.

The 18-page letter summarized a series of steps that patrol officers, negotiators and SWAT officers took to get Fordyce-Blair to leave her East Anchorage home after she barricaded herself inside following an altercation with a neighbor on June 19.

Police initially responded to her home at 7400 East 20th Avenue after a neighbor reported she threatened him and his son with a gun while they were mowing their lawn, the report said. The neighbor told police her behavior was unusual and they were friends, it said.

When officers arrived, Fordyce-Blair was already barricaded in her home. They were attempting to serve her with a warrant for third-degree assault stemming from a threat to her neighbor, the report said.

For more than four hours, negotiators made repeated announcements over loudspeakers, spoke to her on the phone and communicated via text message, fired non-lethal missiles at her home and through her windows, used chemical substances in her home and flew a drone through her window to get her to get out, the report said.

The investigation says officials feared Fordyce-Blair might have mental health issues, the letter said. Negotiators spoke to a family member of Fordyce-Blair who said she had sent him a text message the day before that made no sense, the letter said.

According to the letter, negotiators spoke to Fordyce-Blair several times by phone and text during the standoff. She texted them to say she was safe and thanked them “for bringing the warrant officers back and protecting my truck,” the letter said.

Eventually, Fordyce-Blair began firing shots from inside the house, the letter said. The footage shows her firing at a drone and hitting it. She also shot at a second drone that the police had sent into the house, the letter said.

Several officials said they believed Fordyce-Blair “posed an imminent threat to the public,” the investigation said.

Officers deployed a second round of chemical agents inside the home to force Fordyce-Blair to come out, the letter says. Shortly afterward, the garage door began to open, showing Fordyce-Blair inside, and officers ordered her to drop the gun she was holding in her left hand, the report says. Butler fired, fatally shooting her, it says.

During an interview, Butler said he saw Fordyce-Blair raise her gun “in his direction” and believed she was trying to kill him, the report said. He said she did not appear to be affected by the chemicals police used, which surprised him, the letter said.

Fordyce-Blair was one of six people shot by Anchorage police since mid-May. Three other people died and two were injured.

This is the fourth Office of Special Prosecutions investigation released in the wake of the recent Anchorage shootings. All officers involved in the other shootings investigated by the state to date have been found to have justified their use of force. No officer in Alaska has been prosecuted for their role in a shooting in recent decades.

There is no bodycam footage of Fordyce-Blair's shooting because Anchorage SWAT officers were not equipped with that technology at the time of the shooting.