A shooting Sunday night at an apartment complex near the University of Alaska Anchorage sent a father and his child to a local hospital, and police say the suspected shooter remains at large.
According to a statement from Anchorage police, officers responded at about 9 p.m. to an East 43rd Avenue apartment complex off Tudor Road near the Alaska Native Medical Center. Police say the shooting took place after another man entered an apartment occupied by the father and child.
“Some type of interaction between the two men occurred; both men fired shots,” police wrote. “The father was hit at least once in the upper body and the (child) was struck at least once in the lower body. Both were transported to a hospital for treatment of non-life-threatening injuries.”
Police said the suspect — described in a text alert sent to UAA students as a white man wearing a tan Carhartt jacket and black pants, armed with a handgun — then left the apartment. Officers conducted an extensive search of the area Sunday night that included police dogs and a drone but didn’t find him.
Although the motive for the shooting is still under investigation, police said Monday that it is believed to have been a targeted incident and not random.
Police spokeswoman Renee Oistad declined to answer further questions about the shooting Monday, saying only that the wounded child was “elementary school age.”
Investigators ask anyone with information on the shooting or surveillance video from the area to call police at 311.
Chris Klint is a web producer and breaking news reporter at Alaska Public Media. Reach him at cklint@alaskapublic.org. Read more about Chris here.
