Holloway: Alaska State Trooper's actions 'professional and heroic' in fatal Fairbanks shooting
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“This is a tragic event fueled we think by the misuse of some substances,” Col. Audie Holloway said.
Holloway, normally based in Anchorage, came to Fairbanks on Wednesday to see the Hess Avenue home where troopers say Thom D. Gruenig, 38, came at a trooper with a knife, refusing commands to drop the weapon.
Holloway praised the actions of the trooper as “professional and heroic.”
Inside the house, troopers found the body of Thom’s mother, Kathryn Gruenig, 66, who had been stabbed to death. Troopers have no other suspects besides Thom Gruenig, and though the case is under investigation, Holloway said the lack of other suspects and clearly correct actions of the trooper allow him to speak about the case in greater detail sooner than in other incidents where troopers have fatally shot suspects.
Dispatchers received a 911 call from the Hess Avenue home owned by Kathryn Gruenig at 7:30 a.m. Tuesday. The dispatcher could only hear labored breathing on the end of the phone.
Having prior experience with injured people calling for help, the dispatcher asked the caller to tap on the phone in response to questions. He received no answers, Holloway said.
“The call taker was trying his best to get an indication of what the situation was, and he could have at this point said it was someone playing a prank and sent medics,” Holloway said. “He could kind of tell something was wrong. It was a pivotal time, and he made the right decision that made everything else turn out right.”
A single trooper and three medics were dispatched to the scene. Weaving his way between two cars in the driveway, the trooper knocked on the door and identified himself.
Thom Gruenig, naked, answered the door with a folding knife in his hand and immediately came at the trooper, Holloway said. The trooper backed up and ordered him to drop the knife. Neighbors who heard the commotion corroborated the story.
Gruenig did not comply, and when the trooper’s back hit one of the vehicles in the driveway, he fired his gun twice, hitting Gruenig in the chest. Gruenig was never more than four or five feet away from the trooper, Holloway said.
“You couldn’t ask for a better trained response,” the colonel said. “He did exactly the right thing, and he probably kept who knows how many other people from being hurt or killed.”
Per department policy, the name of the trooper involved in the shooting will not be released until Friday, three business days after the shooting.
The trooper immediately summoned medics, who began treating Thom Gruenig. He was pronounced dead a short time later at Fairbanks Memorial Hospital.
Inside, troopers found Kathryn Gruenig’s body near a phone. She had apparently tried to call for help.
In the lower level of the home, where Thom Gruenig lived, troopers found several dozen marijuana plants and thousands of small nitrous oxide containers, some full and some empty.
Nitrous oxide, commonly used by dentists and in some compressed food containers such as whipped cream, is a habit-forming substance that can cause depersonalization, dizziness, euphoria and mild hallucinations.
“It’s apparent that he had been using these for some reason,” Holloway said. “We can’t come to conclusions that they did something to him.”
The bodies of Thom and Kathryn Gruenig have been sent to the state medical examiner for autopsies.
“The main point I want to get through is that the troopers and dispatchers couldn’t be asked to do a better job,” Holloway said. “The city of Fairbanks should be proud to have people of that caliber watching out for them.”
Contact staff writer Chris Freiberg at 459-7545.
What part of "justifiable" and "self-defense" do you not seem to understand?
While your concern should have, and does have merit, your "killergate" theories and accusations ARE NOT APPLICABLE IN THIS CASE.
Undoubtedly, that's why your posts keep getting deleted.
Stop hiding behind your anonymity, pony up, and submit a letter to the editor using your real name if you would like further on-line community discussion of your concerns.
I don't think anyone should be shot unless there is strong evidence that that person is an "imminent threat" to another person or persons. I question the behavior of Thom as qualifying for this definition. Certainly the troopers made a video of this event. That video should be released to the public so we can decide if we think Thom's killing was warranted.
One more point. If the news miner moderator continues to edit my posts or delete them, I will drop my subscription and the ad that I have bee running in the N-M for the last two years.
I'm not defending a killer. I'm not trying to lessen the severity and violence of Thom's actions. Let me be clear in stating that I think what he did was shocking and gruesome. I am not defending what he's done.
I have expressed that the Thom I knew over 5 years ago was someone who wouldn't have, couldn't have killed his mother and attacked a trooper. He just seemed like too good of a person - 5 years ago - to have met such a violent and tragic ending on Tuesday. Many people shared this general view of Thom, and were shocked to the very core upon hearing news of this murder and killing.
Many of us are trying to make sense of this incomprehensible tragedy. He snapped Tuesday morning. But was his general physical and mental health relatively fine, say, a month ago, yet in recent weeks it underwent a catastrophic decline? Or, was he this close to snapping a long time ago, but managed to keep it hidden from most people?
Many of us wonder if anything about this situation was preventable, and if so, how. And if we can figure out how it was preventable, maybe we can actually help stop a tragedy like this from happening again.
You bring up a relevant point, alaskop. Hitler probably was darn cute as a toddler. What 2 year old isn't?
The big question is, at what point does a good person become bad?
I hate using the term, but we do know that at the end of his life, Thom was a homicidal maniac. There's no disputing that point. The question is, did he spend the last minutes of his life as one, or the last ten years? If it was the last 10 years, he surely had me and a lot of other people fooled. No, "homicidal maniac" does not equal "good," but a lot of people knew Thom Gruenig to be a good man. Stating this is not a defense of his actions, I'm merely sharing my observations of who he was when I knew him. Or who he appeared to be, to me and many others, over the years.
I want to think that this horrible situation could have been avoided entirely had some form of intervention for Thom occurred early enough, or occurred at all. It's too late now to help Thom or his mother. But it's not too late to help others with what can be learned from this horrible and tragic event.
Pearl thank you for giving good advice on Thanksgiving Day.
This is the proper place for a discussion of the merits [or lack] of trooper behavior, and it is important that such discussion occur. It is inevitable that some people will be very nasty in their assumptions about TG, in an attempt to support or justify his death and the LEO's action.
you're right. i have minimal experience with guns. i learned how to disarm a knife wielding assailant in a simple self defense course.
Surviving members of our community deserve compassion and respect. They are our neighbors, our family, our peers, or maybe just the familiar face we see when doing our grocery shopping. I’ll extrapolate from that and say surviving family members in general, regardless of whether they are members of our community, deserve compassion from we, the readers.
One of the problems with online comment sections attached directly to articles within the forum of news outlets is that it is very difficult for family members who have personal investiture in the news as reported (such as it is) to avoid the discourse. Additionally, this venue does not serve the purpose that Letters to the Editor has traditionally served merely by virtue of its instantaneous satisfaction. People don’t need to think very long before they post whatever comes to their mind at that moment…and let’s face it, it’s super easy to say whatever you feel like saying when you’re using a handle.
I know that whatever I have to say here will come under fire from someone or another who will likely reply with something pithy like, “If you don’t like it, don’t read it.” So I’ll just say this: there are many places for such discourse. Events like this are confusing for us all. I don’t think we ever wake up in the morning imagining that we might be connected, however distantly, to some thing this tragic. Knowing that there are surviving family members reading these comments, consider what impact the words you are choosing to use might have if this were your brother or mother. Perhaps people would be kind enough to take a moment longer to reflect before posting.
Before you people go off on me, i do think the cop did what was necessary I just don't think you can label him a hero like the Holloway person says....
The ambulance crew was there to save lives, the Trooper was there to protect innocent lives. The Trooper did his job, and the EMT's tried their damndest. What would you be saying if the college students on that ambulance were your nephews, and that Trooper attempted to reason with Mr. Gruenig, or tased him (possibly high off his mind), to no effect, and that Trooper was stabbed and incapacitated, and those unarmed medics were then killed? What would you be bitching about on here then???
This event was a tragedy, any way you look at it. Maybe Mr. Gruenig was mentally ill, like the woman in Wasilla. Is it the Trooper's job to help these people? Yes, to a point...but that ends when the suspect puts someone else's life in danger. Is it the Trooper's job to proactively help him? No, of course not, we don't want government intruding in our lives like that do we? This is what we got from De-Institutionalization, mentally ill people walk the streets instead of being forced into psych hospitals to get the help they need.
Since gov't got out of that game, who does the responsibility to get these people help fall to? The families, that's who. My heart goes out to the Gruenig family, but we all need to pay attention to our family members and encourage them to get the help they need.
Don't sit on here and blame the Trooper who saved at least 2 lives for not being caring enough to step inside with Mr. Gruenig and sit down and discuss his issues over a cup of tea. He did his job, a job most of us could never handle. I for one am glad to know that there are LEO's like him out there to protect my friends and family, and I am sure as hell glad this one did what he had to do to protect the EMT's who's lives depended on him carrying out his duty to the fullest.
I believe there is something very fundamentally wrong with someone who sides with criminals all the time, no matter what. Sad part is these mentally disturbed people VOTE. And now we are all suffering because of it.
I must also say it is nice that the news media gave the laws point of few. Maybe your circulation will pick-up.