Associated Press
FAIRBANKS, Alaska — A man convicted of killing a Fairbanks, Alaska, police officer in 2016 has been sentenced to 119 years in prison.
Superior Court Judge Michael McConahy on Tuesday sentenced Anthony Jenkins-Alexie, 32, for the shooting death of Sgt. Allen Brandt, an 11-year veteran of the Fairbanks Police Department, Fairbanks television station KTVF reported.
Current and former law enforcement officers, along with former Fairbanks District Attorney Gregg Olson, packed the courtroom for the sentencing.
The shooting occurred as Brandt responded in his patrol car to calls of shots fired and a man yelling in a neighborhood east of downtown Fairbanks.
Brandt’s dashboard camera recorded him driving slowly as Alexie-Jenkins approached on the sidewalk. As the patrol car stopped, Alexie-Jenkins, moved his right hand toward his coat pocket but continued out of the picture. Seconds later, Alexie-Jenkins, gripping a silver handgun with both hands, ran around the front of the car and started shooting, the video shows.
Brandt opened the driver’s door and took cover but was hit. He fired back but fell. He was struck six times: twice in the right leg, once in the left leg and once in the right foot. One shot grazed his right knee. Body armor stopped a shot to the chest, but at least two bullet fragments entered his right eye.
As Brandt lay on the ground, prosecutors said, Jenkins-Alexie approached and took the officer’s gun from his hand. He tried removing ammunition from Brandt’s duty belt and stomped on Brandt’s head. Jenkins-Alexie then got into the patrol car and drove off. A rear tire was flat and he abandoned the car two blocks away.
Police arrested Jenkins-Alexie a few days after the shooting. When police searched his home, they found a confession written on notebook paper in which he referenced a previous police shooting of a close friend.
Brandt had been expected to recover from his wounds and he appeared at a city council meeting. However, in followup surgery, Brandt died of complications from the attack.
Jenkins-Alexie was convicted in April of first-degree murder. The jury made a special finding that he had killed a uniformed police officer, which carries a mandatory 99-year sentence.
Jenkins-Alexie at the sentencing apologized to his family and said he should have known better.
“Today I am letting everybody know here in this courtroom, the citizens of Fairbanks, Alaska, throughout Alaska, and across the nation, I own up to the assault one, the vehicle theft and etc. but not to any murder or attempted murder,” Jenkins said.