A Soldotna woman is facing two charges of misconduct involving a weapon in connection with a Monday shooting that caused damage to a property.
Alaska State Troopers on Tuesday reported that they responded to a residence after the homeowner reported that her front window had been shot through. An investigation by troopers concluded that Nessa Ciar Brandt, 25, of Soldotna, had fired a handgun to try and scare away two dogs that were fighting in her driveway.
The bullet, troopers reported, traveled across the street, through the front window of a neighboring house and then out of the back door of the house. No one was hit or injured by the bullet, troopers said.
Sgt. Matthew Wertanen wrote in a Dec. 4 affidavit accompanying charging documents that the neighbor who reported the gunshot was in her garage at the time the gun was fired, and that he observed holes in glass panes in the house’s front and back doors that “appeared consistent with bullet holes.”
Troopers then went to the house immediately across the street from the house that was shot, which Wertanen wrote was “right in line with the direction the shot came from.” Troopers, Wertanen wrote, also observed a spent case from a handgun on Brandt’s porch.
Brandt, who had left but returned home while troopers were investigating, later told troopers that she fired her stepfather’s handgun into the air, toward the tree line, to try and break up a dog fight, Wertanen wrote.
“I told her that beyond the direction she shot, there were several buildings, and several major roads and highways,” Wertanen wrote. “She said she hadn’t thought about that at all when she shot.”
Brandt was arrested on two charges of misconduct involving weapons, in the second and fourth degrees.
Alaska Statute says a person commits the crime of misconduct involving weapons in the second degree, a class B felony, if that person knowingly discharges a firearm at or in the direction of a dwelling. A person commits the crime of misconduct involving weapons in the fourth degree, a class A misdemeanor, if the person discharges a firearm from, on, or across a highway.
Reach reporter Ashlyn O’Hara at ashlyn.ohara@peninsulaclarion.com.
