The armed man arrested after police fired at him in a Boise apartment complex late Tuesday night is an Iraq war veteran and the survivor of the single deadliest attack on Idaho soldiers in the war.

Boise police say it appears George Nickel, 38, was looking for his dog in the upstairs of the apartment building he lived in off Vista Avenue when he used an AR-15 rifle to shoot into two different doors. Minutes later, Boise police confronted him in a stairway at the complex and fired what is estimated to be 12 rounds at Nickel before he surrendered.

Nickel was one of 100 Idaho Army Reservists with the 321st Engineer Battalion who spent a yearlong deployment to Iraq in 2007. They had one of the most dangerous jobs there: The soldiers were IED hunters who hit the road every day in Iraq looking for roadside bombs — improvised explosive devices or IEDs in military parlance — the biggest killer of U.S. troops in Iraq.

Nickel suffered a broken leg and shrapnel in his face in a February 2007 attack that killed three Idaho soldiers. He recuperated at Walter Reed Army Medical Center for about four months before returning to Boise, officials said then.

At the time of the attack, former KBCI-TV reporter Thanh Tan interviewed a soldier who had lived through a roadside bomb a few years earlier. She asked what Nickel would be going through as the lone survivor of an attack. Former Army Specialist Joel Coulter of Boise talked cautiously about the pain he said he and others have gone through.

"Three guys died. I survived. He (is probably) feeling depressed" Coulter said, referring to any soldier who survives an attack that others do not. "He's pissed. He's depressed, and right now he feels like he wants to die. For me, at least, it was like that."

Boise Police Chief Mike Masterson said Tuesday his investigators are still not sure why Nickel thought his dog was in his neighbors apartment, why he used a rifle to try to shoot out the locks of two different doors, and why he pointed a handgun and flashlight at police in the stairwell of the apartment building.

“This is bizarre behavior ... I don’t know what would push people to that (level of) desperation,” Masterson said Wednesday.

Police said Nickel, who lives on a lower level of the apartment complex on the 2600 block of Bedford Lane, went to an upstairs apartment with an AR-15 rifle shortly after 11 p.m. and started pounding on the door of an apartment looking for his dog.

A witness called 911 around the same time Nickel is accused of firing one bullet from the rifle into the door of the apartment and trying to kick his way in, police say.

A short time later, police say Nickel used the rifle to shoot two bullets in the door of a different neighbor’s apartment. Masterson said there is evidence Nickel suspected that neighbor, who was a dog owner, might know where his dog was.

That’s around the time officers showed up at the apartment building, located near the intersection of Vista Avenue and Canal Street, where they confronted Nickel at the top of a stairwell. Officers say Nickel was holding a handgun and flashlight, which he continued to point at them after getting verbal commands to drop the gun.

At that point, four officers fired what is suspected to be 12 rounds at Nickel, who Masterson said took cover at the top of the stairwell.

That was when Nickel began talking to officers and surrendered. Neither Nickel or the officers were injured in the shooting. It does not appear that Nickel fired at police, Masterson said. It appears as if the handgun was not fired and the three bullets fired from the rifle went into the doors, he said.

Nickel was charged with felony counts of aggravated assault and discharge of a gun into an inhabited building and booked into the Ada County Jail Wednesday morning. He is scheduled to make his initial court appearance Thursday afternoon.

The Ada County Sheriff's Office is leading the Critical Incident Task Force investigation of the officer-involved shooting.

The four officers who fired at Nickel have been placed on administrative leave, which is Boise police policy. They were still being interviewed Wednesday afternoon.

Boise community Ombudsman Pierce Murphy, who investigates all officer-involved shootings or use of deadly force by Boise police officers, also responded to the apartment complex to begin his investigation into what happened.

The results of his investigation will be issued after the task force has completed their review.

Nickel is currently employed as a correctional officer with the rank of sergeant by the Idaho Department of Correction at the medium security prison south of Boise.

Nickel was hired by the IDOC in 1997 and promoted to sergeant in 2001, according to department spokesman Jeff Ray. Nickel is currently on administrative leave, Ray said.