Three people, including a police officer, were shot and injured Monday morning following a confrontation in an East Anchorage park.
Police have a suspect in custody. They say after the shooting he barricaded himself in a Muldoon mobile home. The standoff lasted for hours, until 5:30 p.m. It drew a major response from law enforcement, including SWAT teams from the Anchorage police and the state troopers, and a trooper helicopter.
Students at East Anchorage schools were not released at the end of the school day. The deputy chief of Anchorage schools, Kersten Johnson-Struempler, said students were safe at all times.
“When it became apparent that the situation was going to last longer than the school release time, we notified families that were affected at Creekside Elementary and Muldoon Elementary that they would need to come to the school and pick up their students so that they would be safe and not walking in the neighborhood,” she said at a news conference.
The school district extended the request to parents of Begich Middle School and Bartlett High School. A few students and staff were still at school after 5 p.m., she said.
Anchorage Police Sean Case said all three people shot Monday were expected to survive. He said the incident began shortly after 11 a.m. when police were called to the parking lot of Creekside Park.
“Officers located an adult male and an adult female, both of which were victims of gunshot wounds to the upper body, both are transported to a local hospital with non life-threatening injuries,” he said. “With the help of citizens, officers located the suspect in a nearby trailer park at the 700 block of Muldoon Road. The adult male suspect fired at police, striking one police officer in the lower leg.”
Case said there was no known relationship between the victims and the suspect.
Shortly after the news conference, police posted a brief update online saying the suspect was in custody and would be taken in for questioning.
Liz Ruskin is the Washington, D.C., correspondent at Alaska Public Media. Reach her at lruskin@alaskapublic.org. Read more about Liz here.
