By Seema Mehta
Los Angeles Times
New details emerged Monday about the arrest of Track Palin, the eldest son of former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, with charging documents saying he broke into his parents’ home and beat his father.
Track Palin, 28, was arrested Saturday and is charged with first-degree burglary, fourth-degree assault and criminal mischief; he remains in custody. A court filing describes a chaotic scene at the family’s home in Wasilla, Alaska, when Palin confronted his father over a truck he wanted to pick up.
His father, Todd Palin, had told him not to come to the home because Track Palin had been drinking and taking pain medication, according to a sworn police affidavit and charging documents.
“Track told him he was (going to) come anyway to beat his ass,” according to an affidavit filed by Wasilla Police Officer Adam LaPointe.
When Todd Palin confronted his son at the door with a pistol, the younger Palin broke a window and entered the house and started beating his father, according to court filings. Palin pushed his father to the ground and hit him repeatedly on the head, the documents say.
Sarah Palin, the 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee, called police at 8:30 p.m. and said her son was “freaking out and was on some type of medication.”
When police arrived, they saw Todd and Sarah Palin fleeing the house in separate vehicles, Todd Palin with blood running down his face and Sarah Palin looking “visibly upset,” the documents say.
Police confronted Track Palin in the residence. He called them “peasants” and told them to lay down their weapons, according to the documents. Eventually, Palin left the house and was placed in handcuffs.
He told police that when he arrived at the house, his father had his gun aimed at him, and he had urged his father to shoot him several times before entering the house, according to the documents.
When policed interviewed Todd Palin, he was bleeding from multiple cuts to his head, and one ear was discharging liquid, documents say. There is no record of an interview with Sarah Palin.
A judge set Track Palin’s bail at $5,000. He remains in custody at the Mat-Su Pretrial Facility in Palmer, Alaska.
Track Palin has had previous brushes with the law. In January 2016, he was arrested for punching his girlfriend at the same Wasilla home. He pleaded guilty to possessing a firearm while intoxicated, and took a plea deal that resulted in other charges being dismissed. His girlfriend later filed for custody of their child and sought a protective order against him.
At the time of that arrest, Sarah Palin was campaigning for then-candidate Donald Trump during the GOP primaries and caucuses. She alluded to her son’s arrest during a campaign rally, suggesting that he suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder after returning from a military deployment in Iraq.
She described soldiers “who come home from the battlefield bringing new battles with them (and) coming back different than when they left for the war zone.”
“When my own son is going through what he goes through coming back, I can certainly relate to other families who feel these ramifications of PTSD,” she said, before blaming then-President Barack Obama for not respecting veterans.
During the 2008 presidential campaign, when Sarah Palin was Sen. John McCain’s running mate, she frequently spoke of her son’s service in the military. He was stationed in Iraq during most of the general election campaign.
