One man was killed early Saturday in a downtown Anchorage shooting, and responding officers shot and wounded another man who witnesses said had been involved, according to police.
Officers were making a bar-break patrol at about 2:30 a.m. when they heard the initial gunfire, according to an Anchorage Police Department statement.
Police said the gunfire was from an “altercation” in a parking lot on the southeast corner of H Street and West 3rd Avenue, near the Nesbett Courthouse. The shooting left one man dead at the scene and a second shot in the lower body.
“The number of shooters, who they are, the motive behind the shooting, and whether the parties involved were known to one another are all under investigation,” police said. “Multiple people fled the scene once the parking lot shooting occurred.”
As the patrol officers responded, police said, witnesses pointed out a man to them and said he had been involved in the shooting.
“Officers engaged the male, who was armed with a gun, near 3rd Avenue and G Street,” police said in the statement. “Two officers discharged their weapons, striking the adult male in the upper and lower body.”
Police have not named the man killed during the initial encounter in the parking lot. The two injured men were both taken to local hospitals. Police said the man wounded in the initial shooting had injuries that weren’t life-threatening, and the man shot by officers was in stable condition.
Police are asking anyone who saw the initial shooting and hasn’t yet spoken with investigators to contact them at 311. Drivers can expect street closures Saturday in the vicinity of both shooting scenes, which police say are being investigated separately.
The two officers involved in the subsequent shooting will be named in three days and have been placed on four days of administrative leave under standard APD policy, according to the statement. That shooting will be investigated first by the state Office of Special Prosecutions for any violations of state law, then by APD Internal Affairs for any violation of police policy.
Saturday’s encounter occurred as officers’ fatal shooting of Kristopher Handy at a Sand Lake apartment complex last month has placed the department under public scrutiny. APD Chief Designee Bianca Cross, appointed by outgoing Mayor Dave Bronson, said in a news conference hours after Handy’s May 13 death that he had raised a long gun at officers – a claim soon contradicted by a neighbor who said her surveillance footage showed otherwise. Cross also said that the four officers who shot Handy were wearing body cameras, but has said that footage will not be released until after an investigation, despite his family’s calls to do so immediately.
This story will be updated as additional details become available.
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.
