Alaska State Troopers Charged with Assault in Violent Arrest of Wrong Man

Troopers Accused of Excessive Force

Two Alas­ka State Troop­ers have been charged with assault for their involve­ment in a vio­lent arrest of a man they mis­took for some­one else. 

Canine han­dler Jason Woodruff and Sgt. Joseph Miller are accused of pep­per-spray­ing, beat­ing, stun­ning, and using a police dog on Ben Tik­ka, the cousin of the man they were actu­al­ly try­ing to arrest.

Victim Suffered Serious Injuries

The arrest left Ben Tik­ka blood­ied and in need of surgery to repair mus­cle lac­er­a­tions. He also suf­fered a frac­tured shoul­der, cuts to his head, and an open dog bite on his left upper arm. Accord­ing to the charg­ing doc­u­ments, the troop­ers failed to con­firm Tikka’s iden­ti­ty before using force against him.

Troopers Defend Actions

The troop­ers claimed that the force used was rea­son­able, with Miller stat­ing that “no force would have been used if Tik­ka had sim­ply exit­ed the vehi­cle and com­plied with commands.” 

Woodruff also defend­ed his actions, say­ing he was fol­low­ing his train­ing in using the police dog on Tik­ka, whom he described as “super pissed” when he exit­ed the vehicle.

Charges and Consequences

The troop­ers have been charged with one count of mis­de­meanor assault and are due to appear in court on Sep­tem­ber 10. 

They have been placed on admin­is­tra­tive leave, and the depart­ment is review­ing past cas­es they have been involved in for pos­si­ble pol­i­cy vio­la­tions. The police dog used in the inci­dent has also been tak­en out of service.

Authorities Condemn Incident

James Cock­rell, com­mis­sion­er of the Alas­ka Depart­ment of Pub­lic Safe­ty, said he had nev­er seen any­thing like the inci­dent in his 33 years with the depart­ment, and that he was “total­ly sick­ened by what I saw.”

The state has pre­vi­ous­ly filed exces­sive use of force charges against police offi­cers, but this is the first time such charges have been filed against a troop­er in the last 25 years.