Anchorage police chief answers questions on fatal shooting of Francis Rochon
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) - Anchorage Police Chief Sean Case said he can’t share many details of what an officer saw before he opened fire on 33-year-old Francis Rochon Feb. 4 on a busy Tudor Road — since it is still under investigation — but said the public will have a much better idea when the Office of Special Prosecutions releases its report along with video of the incident.
Both should be available to the public within 45 days of the officer-involved shooting, putting the release date at or before March 22.
The shooting was the third in Anchorage this year that involved police firing their guns.
Case said dispatchers received multiple calls that day that a man, later identified as Rochon, was waving a gun and walking in traffic along Tudor Road near Piper Street. Police said several callers reported Rochon aimed the gun at their vehicles, and at one point, he jumped in front of a school bus which swerved to avoid him.
Case said Rochon ignored officers' commands and that the officer who eventually shot and killed Rochon — identified as APD Officer Isaac Kimball — did so at very close range.
“What the video shows is there was not a shot fired at us in the incident,” Case said. “And the video is going to show that he clearly has his hand on a gun and he clearly takes his gun out of a pocket, and the distance between the officer and the subject is inside of 10 feet.”
Case said the public often questions why an officer would use lethal force, but the decision is made given many factors, he said, often in a split second once a weapon is produced.
“The law certainly gives leeway to be able to justify why that decision was made without being shot at and without having a gun pointed directly at them,” Case said.
Family members previously told Alaska’s News Source the gun — which police say Rochon refused to drop before he was shot — was the same gun he picked up just two hours earlier from the police station on Elmore Road.
Police confirmed the gun had been confiscated after Rochon was charged with a DUI in April 2024, but the case was dropped in January and Rochon was able to get his gun back.
Rochon’s sister, who said she dropped her brother off that morning, said he seemed perfectly fine. Although he sometimes struggled with mental health issues, she said she did not understand what could have changed in such a short period of time.
Case explained that it’s a question police don’t have the answers to either.
“That’s one of the challenging things with some of these situations,” he said. “ We find out some of the back story or some of the information after the investigation continues. And the officers are in a situation where they only have what’s in front of them, they don’t have the time to try to figure out the backstory themselves, and a lot of times, those questions never get answered. So the family and loved ones are left asking the question.”
Case said neither the police department nor the fire department’s mental health crisis teams responded to the incident, adding that he didn’t know if they had been called.
Rochon’s shooting was the third officer-involved shooting for APD this year, following eight in 2024.
When asked whether the department should be doing something differently considering the high numbers, Case replied the issue isn’t just for the police department to solve. He said the community needs more resources to treat mental health and substance abuse to possibly prevent crimes.
“We’re the ones who get called in and ultimately the spotlight’s on us because it ends in tragedy on occasion, but it’s really a broader conversation and topic. And I think, in the next six to 12 months, you are going to start to see that conversation increase more, certainly from the police department’s perspective — I think also from the municipality’s perspective — because there is something more we have to do together, it’s not just a police response.”
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