Sarah Palin’s family brawl: Anchorage police release report

Alaska police have released a report describing a drunken brawl involving the son, daughter and husband of former governor Sarah Palin.

According to police report, Sarah Palin’s children Track and Bristol and husband Todd were involved in physical altercations at a birthday party on September 6.

Prosecutors have declined to press charges in the incident.

Sarah Palin ran for US vice-president in 2008 and remains popular among the Republican Party’s conservative base.

She stepped down from the governorship of Alaska in 2009. She has since had a career in television and remains popular on the conservative speaking circuit.

On the evening of September 6, police were called to the Anchorage home of a man named Korey Klingenmeyer after a report of a brawl involving as many as 20 people.

According to witness statements, which are vague about the initial cause of the fighting, the Palin family and their entourage arrived at the house about 23:00 in a limousine.

Todd and Track Palin, 26, ended up in one fight with a group of men on the street outside the house, while Bristol Palin, 23, got into an altercation with the party host.

Track Palin, described as bloodied, “belligerent” and “heavily intoxicated”, told police the family had come to the house to join the party, and that the fight began when a group of men began speaking rudely to his sisters and one of them “sucker punched” a friend.

Track Palin offered to fight and was subsequently attacked by two men, he told police. Todd Palin told police that “everything escalated and it was a situation they couldn’t walk away from”.

Sarah Palin, meanwhile, was at the scene but not reportedly involved in the violence.

Korey Klingenmeyer, who “appeared to be moderately intoxicated”, told police he was angry that the Palins had come to the party and “were causing the problems”.

Upon learning men were fighting outside his house, he told his guests not to get involved, he told police.

But then, he told police, Bristol Palin entered the property spoiling for a fight. Korey Klingenmeyer said he told her he would not have any fighting at his home, at which point Bristol Palin confronted him with profanity.

Then, Korey Klingenmeyer said he invited Bristol Palin to punch him in the face “if it makes her feel better”.

She did so, five or six times and “she was hitting pretty hard”.

Korey Klingenmeyer and other witnesses said Klingenmeyer never returned the blows.

Bristol Palin, meanwhile, told police she had intended to confront someone who she said had pushed her sister Willow, when Korey Klingenmeyer pushed her to the ground.

A witness, Matthew McKenna, told police that when the fight started at an intersection near the house, he told Todd Palin to gather his family and entourage and leave.

“He said the problem was that Bristol and Willow were drunk, as were their boyfriends,” the police wrote.

“McKenna apologized for wasting our time.”

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