Police killed a man who fired AK-47 in Boise’s North End. His family’s suing
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- Boise police faces a lawsuit over 2023 police shooting that killed Macey Juker.
- Family alleges officers ignored policy and used excessive force.
- Investigations found force justified but noted missed chance for de-escalation.
The family of a suicidal man who was killed by police in Boise’s North End neighborhood has sued the Boise Police Department, arguing that the agency used excessive force to apprehend him when half a dozen officers opened fire.
Macey Juker’s family, in a 26-page lawsuit, alleged that the department violated the 28-year-old’s Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights to be free from “undue and unreasonable force” in the 2023 shooting.
“Juker was undoubtedly scared, intoxicated, suicidal, suffering from hallucinations and a diminished mental state,” the family’s Blackfoot-based attorney, Chip Giles, wrote in the proposed complaint filed in June. Giles declined to comment further on the lawsuit when reached by phone.
The Boise Department declined to comment, citing pending litigation.
Juker was shot nine times, lawsuit says
Just before 10:30 p.m. on July 26, 2023, Juker contacted Ada County Dispatch, reporting that someone was trying to break into his house to kill him and that radiation was “melting” his brain, according to investigative records. Boise Police Officer Jake Lee was assigned the call and contacted Juker, believing he was experiencing some type of crisis.
“What’s going on tonight?” Lee asked, according to released body-camera footage.
“I’m not sure, I was really drunk. I guess I bought some heroin,” Juker responded. “There’s some guys here — they want me to kill myself — but I’m trying to get them to stop so I can finish the bottle.”
Two minutes into the call, roughly half a dozen rounds went off, footage showed. Officers, including Lee, drove to the North End, where they found Juker armed with an AK-47 in the intersection of 19th and Washington streets.
Initially, he followed the officers’ orders, and placed his gun aside before kneeling on the ground with his hands in the air, records showed. But as officers waited for additional resources to arrive, Juker began to fidget, eventually picking up his gun and fleeing.
He then turned toward the officers while holding the gun, and six of them — Jason Pietrzak, Kirk Rush, Ryan Pollard, Chase Fiddler, Dominic Rogers and Craig Sousa — fired their weapons. The officers fired off a total of 33 shots, striking Juker with nine of those, according to the lawsuit.
He was “wrongfully, gravely and horrifically killed,” Giles wrote in the lawsuit.
Lawsuit: Police ‘ignored’ opportunities to detain Juker
Juker’s family questioned why he wasn’t immediately taken into custody.
Had officers followed the Boise Police Department’s policy and protocol for taking a suspect into custody, the lawsuit alleged that Juker would have been arrested while he was following officers’ commands — and away from any weapon.
“The shooting occurred after Juker was compliant with officers, approximately 15 yards from his weapon, on his knees with his hands above his head,” Giles wrote. Officers were ”well aware of Juker’s mental and physical state, and even though Juker was initially compliant for some time, ignored numerous opportunities to detain Juker without the use of deadly force.”
Under the Police Department’s Policy Manual, officers should use deadly force only to protect themselves or others from “imminent threat of death or serious bodily injury” or to stop someone suspected of committing a felony. But even without the policy, the lawsuit alleged, “properly trained officers” wouldn’t delay taking a compliant suspect into custody.
Both an outside investigation by the Gem County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office and internal reviews by the city concluded that the six officers were justified in using deadly force. But the city’s police oversight office and an internal affairs investigation noted that the officers could have continued to communicate with Juker as they waited for additional personnel to arrive.
“Officers missed an opportunity to continue a dialogue with Mr. Juker in an attempt to maintain compliance,” the Office of Police Accountability wrote in an investigative report.
The report said maintaining a constant line of communication was “complicated” because of the limited number of officers, the quick time frame, and the “continuing threat posed” by Juker.
Officers say weapons were unclear
Several of the officers involved in the incident explained in interviews that they hesitated to immediately arrest Juker when he was complying with their orders because they weren’t sure whether he had another firearm, according to investigative reports.
Pollard, one of the officers involved in the shooting, said that he wanted to “maintain a certain amount of distance” and that Juker knew they were officers. Pollard said he hoped it would be a sign to Juker that they were there to help.
Sgt. Pietrzak said in an interview that he knew Juker “was not going to be cooperative.”
In body-camera footage, as officers talked about moving in to detain him, Pietrzak could be heard saying that “the longer he sits like that, the more he’s going —” before another officer interjects, yelling to Juker, “Hey man, listen.” Before the officer could finish speaking, Juker got up, ran back toward his firearm, grabbed it and pointed it at the police.
Officers’ voices then started to overlap on the footage, with one repeatedly saying, “No,” while another cursed. Pietrzak was one of several officers who ran after Juker, yelling at him to stop.
“Stop! No,” Pietrzak said before dozens of rounds went off. Once officers began firing, Juker fired back. Juker died at the scene with multiple gunshot wounds, according to the Ada County Coroner’s Office.
Pietrzak later added in an interview that Juker “fought till the end and never made an attempt to give up.”
This story was originally published June 24, 2025 at 4:00 AM.
