Ketchikan police chief charged with assault

KETCHIKAN, Alaska (KTUU) - A grand jury on Thursday returned an indictment for Ketchikan Police Chief Jeffrey Walls for six charges including felony third-degree assault.

Walls is charged with third-degree assault and five misdemeanor charges including three counts of fourth-degree assault and two counts of reckless endangerment.

According to charging documents, Walls and his wife were at the Salmon Falls Resort in Ketchikan when Alaska State Troopers received a report of an assault at 8:22 p.m. on Sept. 10, believing upon arrival that it was Walls who had been assaulted. They arrived to find Walls uninjured outside the resort and a victim exiting the resort’s main entrance with blood coming from his head.

The charging documents said that a male patron drinking at the resort became intoxicated and “intentionally” stumbled into Walls’ chair, knocking him against the bar. Documents said that the two men shook hands immediately after the first incident, but an hour later the man then ran into the bar chair where Walls’ wife was sitting.

“According to multiple witnesses, Jeffrey Walls got up from his seat, ran after (the victim) and pushed (the victim) head first into a wall made of rock/stone,” charging documents said. “After Jeffrey Walls pushed (the victim) into the rock/stone wall, Jeffrey Walls placed (the victim) into what multiple witnesses described as a chokehold. It took multiple people around thirty seconds or more to physically remove Jeffrey Walls from applying the chokehold to (the victim).”

Charging documents stated that the victim required stitches and received medical attention for a laceration on his forehead. The account of the interaction contained in the charging documents said that Walls had the man in the “chokehold” for between one and two minutes and that the man “could not speak and his head began turning red.”

“After Jeffrey Walls is completely pulled away by these people, he makes an attempt to reengage with the person he was physically removed from, causing those who pulled him away the first time to have to pull him back from going in again,” charging documents said.

Walls was not on duty at the time of the incident.

Walls’ arraignment was scheduled to take place Friday morning at 11 a.m.

The Office of Special Prosecutions is handling the case.

Editor’s note: This story has been edited to reflect the accurate date of the incident, which was Sept. 10, 2022

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