ANCHORAGE, Alaska - A man accused of killing two police officers in Hoonah had a series of run-ins with authorities that included an arrest last year for investigation of assaulting officers who tried to question him in a trespassing case, police said.
Charges were later dropped in that case against John Marvin Jr., 45, who now faces two counts of first-degree murder in the shooting of Sgt. Tony Wallace and Officer Matt Tokuoka on Saturday after the officers happened to stop and talk in front of Marvin's home.
Marvin was arrested after a day-and-a-half standoff.
Police Chief John Millan said encounters with Marvin in recent months had left officers feeling uneasy, The Anchorage Daily News reported Thursday.
Millan said he had talked with Wallace last month about Marvin, and Wallace told him, "Chief, he's going to kill one of us if we're not careful. It's going to happen."
Millan said he also had a "sick feeling of dread, of inevitability," but couldn't arrest someone for being perceived as weird.
"There's no law against being strange. Against being mentally ill," Millan said.
Marvin's tangles with police in Hoonah, about 40 miles west of Juneau, began about a year ago, when a woman said he appeared in her house, unwelcome. Wallace and Tokuoka later went to Marvin's home to talk about it.
Police said Marvin attacked the officers, who stopped him with Tasers. Marvin spent more than three months in jail in Juneau following the arrest, but Millan said the officers had little interest in pressing charges.
"My officers had come to me and said that they weren't aggressively motivated to throw him under the bus of the court system. They had some compassion for him," Millan said.
On Dec. 1, prosecutors dropped assault and trespassing charges against Marvin, court records showed.
On Jan. 4, Wallace wrote Marvin a ticket for driving with a license that had been expired for nearly six years. In addition, he hadn't registered his vehicle and wasn't carrying insurance, police said.
The chief encountered Marvin at the courthouse as Marvin dealt with the ticket. He was polite but making little sense, telling Millan he was a member of the Russian royal family.
In the spring, Millan knocked on Marvin's door to deliver a letter saying he wasn't allowed on school property anymore.
A district employee had spotted a man she believed was Marvin in a dark hallway after hours. Marvin doesn't have kids in the school, and the building was already closed for the day.
"He stared her down and then ran out of the building," Millan said.
Millan recalled standing outside Marvin's home to deliver the warning. The windows had been blackened, but police could still see him peeping out.
Millan said Marvin snatched the door open and swore at him.
"You remember me, Mr. Marvin? I'm the police chief," Millan replied.
"I know who you think you want me to believe you are," Marvin said, yelling for the police to get off his property, Millan recalled.
The chief and a sergeant left without delivering the trespassing notice, but no one complained about Marvin showing up at the school again, Millan said.
I heard on the radio yesterday that he had been charged and that those charges had been dropped and then I heard an allegation that Mr. Marvin had been 'stalking' the two police officers.
I fail to understand how and why the previous charges were dropped; this sounds like a case of 'village politics' on the surface of it. If the charges had not been dropped, the officers would still be alive. Would someone care to explain 'my error' to me?
I say fry him.
Any community who doesn't care about the mental health of its members, will have some go completely bonkers and cause a tragedy such as this one.
My condolences to the officers who tried to help this man and their families and friends are in my thoughts too.
Indeed, the vast majority of people who have a mental illness do not kill people; most live happy, productive manageable lives.
Being strange also doesn't make you mentally ill and in need of mental health intervention.
Killing someone, as wrong as it may be, also doesn't go hand in hand with being mentally ill. Some people just don't know or care the difference between right and wrong. Some of them do know the difference but make the choice to do wrong anyway. A man without mental illness can still make the choice to commit murder. A man is generally a product of his upbringing and surroundings, but still has to be held accountable for his decisions. There is no such thing as mental illness without some type of chemical or physical abnormality.
This is a wake-up call for Alaskans. We need to improve our mental health systems; we need a coordination of mental health and justice. The mental health system is doing the best with what it has...but it is severely under-funded. The laws are written such that a person cannot be held against their will unless they present a clear danger to self or others. No one can be *forced* into treatment.
And yet two brave and compassionate men died. The system is broken. If you are truly concerned, write your legislators and urge them to stabilize mental health funding. Urge them to hold the courts and prosecution accountable.
http://www.adn.com/2010/09/01/1435676/hoonah-police-sensed-trouble-brewing.html
DNM - As you reported earlier, Tony Wallace graduated the Academy here. He has many friends here and we are watching and reading, please keep on top of this and not make it a back story. Thank you.