A federal judge has ordered the Municipality of Anchorage to pay $150,000 to the survivors of a man with mental health issues who died six years ago during a standoff with police.
U.S. District Judge Sharon Gleason ruled Monday that officers used “excessive force” in the case of Dan Demott Jr. who died in his home’s crawl space. He was 66 years old. The Anchorage Daily News first reported the ruling.
Gleason’s decision is a rare finding of liability for officers in a local death. State prosecutors have declined to criminally charge any of the Anchorage officers who shot eight people this year, five of them fatally.
The Anchorage Police Department told the ADN that the city plans to appeal the ruling. Police officials declined an interview request Wednesday, but said in a statement that the department is “in the process of carefully reviewing the details and implications of the decision.”
“We take such matters seriously and are committed to upholding the highest standards of conduct within our department,” police said in the statement. “As part of our ongoing commitment to this community, we will ensure that our response reflects our dedication to serving the community effectively and responsibly. We will have a clearer understanding of the next steps once a review has been completed.”
The decision comes in a lawsuit filed by Demott’s daughter, Kelsey Howell, in 2020. Howell said in an interview Wednesday that Demott had retired at a relatively young age and enjoyed helping people. She said she did not believe police took her father’s mental condition into account during the encounter that led to his death.
“I just couldn't imagine what my dad felt or was going through in his last hours,” she said. “It was just like a nightmare that came true to him.”
According to Gleason’s 36-page ruling summarizing the case, Demott had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and manic depression before the Nov. 18, 2018 standoff.
Howell said Demott got into an argument with her that day, prompting her to call 911 at about 6:30 p.m. and report that her father had barricaded his front door, was “ripping down curtains” and was experiencing delusions that the police were watching him. She said Demott needed to return to the Alaska Psychiatric Institute, where he had previously been treated, and that he wasn’t taking his medication.
“She also warned the dispatcher that Demott may not cooperate with the police because he had attacked the police on one prior occasion approximately four or five years prior,” Gleason said.
Howell said in the interview that her father had faced earlier struggles with his mental health.
“Sometimes he would have manic episodes that would last for a while, and usually he would go to API and get on the right track,” she said. “I've experienced it all my life.”
On that night in November, she said, she and her children quickly left the home, then spoke with arriving officers.
“We were put in a squad car near the residence, and then after a while, we got moved farther away and (the) SWAT team was there,” Howell said. “It was just intimidating, like how it elevated so quickly from just calling to the police and letting them know my dad's mental state.”
As police reached the scene, they saw Demott holding a sword inside the home. Howell’s brother told police Demott also had a BB gun, but a .22-caliber rifle and handgun were locked in a safe and his father had lost the key. He also said Demott did not have a cellphone, landline or internet access.
Demott remained inside with a roommate, Michael Girardin.
Police obtained a warrant for Demott charging him with assault for placing Howell in fear of being injured, criminal mischief for causing damage inside his home and resisting arrest by barricading himself inside. The incident was marked as a case of domestic violence.
At about 7:40 p.m., call logs showed police “began making several announcements to the residence,” Gleason said in the ruling. Roughly half an hour later, members of the department’s SWAT team arrived.
They included two sergeants at the time: Luis Soto, assigned to a command center several blocks away, and entry team leader Steven Childers. According to the ADN, only Childers still appears to be with the department.
Police made dozens of announcements over a loudspeaker directed at Demott and Girardin. Members of the department’s Crisis Intervention Team were also present, but never used the device.
“At no time was the loudspeaker used to try to negotiate with Demott or Girardin, or to try to address Demott’s mental health needs, or to serve as a means for family or friends of Demott to communicate with him,” Gleason said.
At about 11 p.m., police fired “knock-knock” foam rounds at the home, breaking a large front window. An officer saw Demott retreat from a window, which Gleason said “was the last time that Demott was reportedly seen alive.”
Half an hour later, police heard a “loud banging” inside the home. Officers deployed tear-gas grenades into the home, causing Girardin to leave. Soon afterward, Childers deployed another tear-gas grenade into the home’s garage.
Girardin told officers that Demott was “experiencing a Vietnam flashback,” according to Gleason, and had threatened to shoot him if he left. He also said, however, that he did not see any weapons in the home, except he knew Demott had BB guns. He said Demott dropped his swords when police broke the window.
Demott had encouraged Girardin to join him in the home’s crawl space, calling it a “bunker,” but Girardin refused because it was too cold, the ruling said. The ambient air temperature that evening was 15 degrees.
Police deployed more tear gas into the garage and house and then sent in a robot that didn’t detect any movement inside the home. At about 1:30 a.m. the following morning, police deployed more tear gas into the crawl space, before Childers and other officers entered the home “at some point after” 2 a.m., the ruling said.
Demott was found dead submerged in water in the crawl space at about 4:15 a.m. An autopsy determined that he died of either hypothermia or drowning, but classified his death as an accident.
On Wednesday, Howell questioned police actions like breaking the home’s windows, given the evening’s low temperatures. She also said their tactics reinforced her father’s fears, even though Girardin had explained his state of mind to officers.
Howell sued the Municipality of Anchorage, as well as Soto and Childers, in November of 2020. She alleged that by supervising SWAT actions the officers had used excessive force while trying to arrest Demott, violating both state law and the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
Attorneys representing the city argued that the force used wasn’t excessive under the circumstances. In an April case filing discussing the officers’ qualified immunity, which bars them from being sued over most official actions, the attorneys said that Demott had threatened to shoot patrol officers who first arrived at his home. They added that nobody was ever able to establish communication with Demott during the standoff.
“SWAT was confronted with a barricaded suspect and a potential hostage situation,” the attorneys wrote.
Gleason found that state law supported police efforts to arrest Demott, as a suspect in domestic violence committed within the previous 12 hours. But she also found that Demott didn’t pose a significant threat to others and was not using force against the officers, instead attempting to “disengage” with them.
“After Girardin left the residence, it was unconstitutionally excessive force for the SWAT team to continue to fire multiple rounds of chemical agents into the home, because Demott was suspected of only minor crimes, posed no apparent threat to the officers or others, and was engaged in only passive resistance,” Gleason said.
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Soto and Childers later said that they believed Crisis Intervention Team policy didn’t apply to criminal suspects. But once Demott was alone, Gleason said, the officers were “constitutionally required to have considered a mental health intervention or other less invasive alternatives” before deploying more tear gas.
Howell said she hopes police learn to consider people’s mental health conditions during similar situations. After Gleason’s judgment, she said she was disappointed that the municipality responded by offering an appeal rather than an apology.
“I believe in court, one of the officers said, ‘Oh, we should have used more force, more, more,’” she said. “And it just, like – that really hurt to hear because, like at (that) time, my dad was deceased already or was dying.”
Gleason found that the police actions were “a substantial factor” in Demott’s death, awarding his estate $50,000 for his pain and suffering, as well as $50,000 each for Howell and her brother’s loss of companionship. She declined to award punitive damages in the case.
Howell thanked her attorney, Jeff Barber, for his work on the case. She also hoped that police would establish preventive measures to keep incidents like the one in which her father died from happening again.
She urged everybody involved to ask themselves a single question: “What can I do better next time?”
