Search fatalities

Deandrea Lamar Robertson

Age : 33

Gender : Male

Race : Black

Date : 06/16/2026

Location : Walmart Supercenter, 8900 Old Seward Highway

City : Anchorage

County : Anchorage

State : Alaska

Agency : Anchorage Police Department

Officer(s) :Kaden Pohl,Trevor Amburn, Tae Yoon

Cause of Death : Gunshot

Event : Killed by police during shoplifting and assault investigation

OPEN RECORDS SUMMARY :

On 06/16/2026, at approximately 10:03 p.m., Walmart employees called Anchorage police concerning an alleged retail theft at the store near Old Seward Highway and Dimond Boulevard. Store loss-prevention employees had detained 33-year-old Deandrea Robertson inside a small loss-prevention office before police arrived. Police Chief Sean Case later acknowledged that the amount of merchandise involved would likely have supported only a misdemeanor theft allegation. Police also said Robertson had an outstanding arrest warrant.
The first Anchorage Police Department officer arrived at approximately 10:17 p.m. Officers Trevor Amburn, Tae Yoon and Kaden Pohl entered the loss-prevention office. APD said that when officers attempted to handcuff Robertson, he moved toward the door, but a Walmart employee closed it. Three officers then struggled with Robertson on the floor of a narrow corridor inside the confined office.
According to APD’s account and body-camera still photographs shown by Chief Case, Robertson obtained a handgun concealed on his body and fired while officers were restraining him on the floor. A bullet struck Officer Trevor Amburn in the thigh, exited his leg and lodged near his ankle inside his boot. Police said Robertson then pointed the handgun backward over his head and fired again. That bullet struck Officer Kaden Pohl in the upper body but was stopped by the ballistic trauma plate in his vest. Officer Tae Yoon suffered hearing damage and temporary vision impairment from the gunfire.
Pohl fired his service weapon and killed Robertson inside the loss-prevention office. APD has not publicly disclosed how many rounds Pohl fired, how many bullets struck Robertson, the precise locations of Robertson’s wounds, whether any other officer discharged a weapon, or released the complete unedited body-camera recordings. The department instead presented selected still images and its own description of the encounter during a June 25 press conference.
The Alaska Office of Special Prosecutions began reviewing Pohl’s use of deadly force. No prosecutorial decision clearing or charging Pohl had been publicly located by 08/04/2026. Despite the unresolved state review, APD placed Pohl on only four days of administrative leave and quickly returned him to armed duty.
Forty-six days after Pohl killed Robertson—six weeks and four days later—Pohl was driving a marked APD patrol vehicle westbound through the intersection of 36th Avenue and A Street at approximately 1:10 a.m. on 08/01/2026. Pohl’s police vehicle slammed into a northbound taxi driven by 68-year-old Cemal Sadiku. The impact was so violent that both vehicles caught fire and were largely destroyed.
Sadiku and his front-seat passenger, 45-year-old William Phillips, died. Three rear-seat taxi passengers survived with injuries. Pohl was hospitalized and later released. Police said his emergency lights were activated, but APD had not disclosed his speed, whether his siren was operating, which vehicle had the green light, the nature or urgency of the call he was answering, or whether he slowed before entering the intersection. The catastrophic destruction and two deaths raised serious questions about Pohl’s speed and emergency-driving decisions, but the department had not yet released the patrol vehicle’s data recorder, GPS and dispatch records, dash-camera recording, traffic-camera footage or collision reconstruction.
The timing is particularly significant. APD returned Pohl to duty while the state was still reviewing his fatal shooting of Robertson. Barely six weeks later, the same officer was involved in another deadly event—this time while driving a police vehicle that struck and burned a taxi, killing two uninvolved members of the public. APD opened a traffic investigation and an internal investigation, leaving the department responsible for examining why an officer it had rapidly returned to duty became involved in a second fatal incident before the first had received a publicly announced independent legal determination.
Pohl had also previously been named in a federal civil-rights lawsuit arising from a February 19, 2023 traffic stop involving Brenda Boudreau. The stop reportedly began because snow obscured Boudreau’s license plate. According to Boudreau’s complaint, Officer Christopher Tyler Hall stopped her and demanded identification. Pohl later arrived and confirmed that officers had blocked her vehicle in.
Boudreau alleged that officers escalated the stop, shattered the driver’s-side window, forcibly pulled her through the broken window, handcuffed her, searched her and impounded her vehicle. She further alleged that officers lifted her dress and exposed her undergarments during the search and coerced her into signing a release document by threatening to jail her. The criminal charge arising from the encounter was dismissed at her April 10, 2023 arraignment.
The court filings do not establish that Pohl personally broke the window or personally pulled Boudreau from the vehicle; the lawsuit attributed those actions collectively to the officers at the scene. Pohl was nevertheless a named defendant and was alleged to have participated by arriving and confirming that her vehicle was blocked in. The federal court dismissed the claims against Pohl and the other officers with prejudice on 08/27/2025, finding that Boudreau had not stated a legally sustainable constitutional claim after multiple amended complaints. The dismissal prevented liability in that lawsuit but did not erase the documented fact that Pohl had previously been involved in a coercive traffic stop that ended with officers breaking a woman’s car window and forcibly removing her.
By August 2026, Pohl’s public record therefore included three serious encounters: participation in the forceful 2023 Boudreau traffic stop, the June 2026 fatal shooting of Deandrea Robertson, and the August 2026 police-vehicle collision that killed Cemal Sadiku and William Phillips. The Robertson shooting occurred during an armed struggle in which police said Robertson shot two officers, but the later double-fatal collision makes full disclosure of Pohl’s conduct, training, emergency-driving history, internal record and return-to-duty decision a matter of substantial public interest.

SOURCE LINKS :

https://www.alaskasnewssource.com/2026/06/17/large-police-presence-closes-down-portion-old-seward-highway/
https://www.adn.com/alaska-news/crime-courts/2026/06/18/police-identify-suspected-shoplifter-killed-in-south-anchorage-walmart-shootout/
https://www.alaskasnewssource.com/2026/06/22/apd-names-officer-who-shot-suspect-walmart-officer-involved-shooting/
https://www.alaskasnewssource.com/2026/06/25/live-police-provide-update-walmart-police-shooting-that-left-suspect-dead-three-officers-hurt/
https://alaskapublic.org/news/anchorage/2026-06-25/man-killed-in-shootout-with-officer-at-anchorage-walmart-had-a-shoplifting-accomplice-police-say
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o72VeSQbZME
https://www.alaskasnewssource.com/2026/08/01/apd-36th-closed-due-collision-with-injuries/
https://www.alaskasnewssource.com/2026/08/03/police-name-2-killed-car-crash-involving-apd-officer/
https://www.adn.com/alaska-news/anchorage/2026/08/01/2-die-in-midtown-collision-with-anchorage-police-vehicle-police-say/
https://www.anchoragepolice.com/news/traffic-investigation-a-street-and-36th-closed
https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/alaska/akdce/3%3A2023cv00164/71814/38/
https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/alaska/akdce/3%3A2023cv00164/71814/52/
https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/67632005/boudreau-v-municipality-of-anchorage/