The three officers who shot and killed Mason Toloff, 32, in Kasilof earlier this year were “legally justified in their use of deadly force,” the State Department of Law said Monday.
Alaska State Troopers Ethan Norwood and Jonathan Lindblom and Homer Police Department Officer Charles Lee were all named as members of the Southern SWAT Team who responded to a Jan. 20 incident involving Toloff. Toloff allegedly was yelling and firing a gun outside in Kasilof and then threatened to shoot responding Alaska State Troopers.
A dispatch from troopers in January said Toloff shot a uniformed trooper in the leg, inflicting “non-life-threatening injuries.” It said that he sometime later pointed his gun at officers again, at which point Norwood, Lindblom and Lee all shot Toloff.
A press release from the department says the three officers were found to be justified in their force by the Office of Special Prosecutions, because “Toloff threatened the responding Troopers and refused to disarm, then fired multiple shots at law enforcement officers.”
That shooting was the second by Alaska State Troopers in the Kasilof area within the last year, following the July shooting death of Kirk Medak at South Kasilof Beach. The agency said he had charged troopers while brandishing a harpoon. The bureau of investigation said troopers were justified in their use of force in that case.
Reach reporter Jake Dye at jacob.dye@peninsulaclarion.com.
