Anchorage police say a man who ran at an officer while holding a knife late last month had made three 911 calls before the officer arrived. The officer shot and killed the man, later identified as 24-year-old James Afuvai.
During a press conference Thursday afternoon, Police Chief Sean Case laid out in detail, for the first time, what officers say happened before the fatal shooting. He said dispatch received the first of three calls from Afuvai at around 7:15 p.m. on Sunday, Sept. 29.
“He said that he thought that he was in trouble and he wouldn’t provide any other further information,” Case said. “He also mentioned that somebody was hurt, did not provide his name, and then hung up the phone.”
Case said Afuvai called two more times before officers responded to the call. Afuvai told them there were shots fired in the area and that a window had been shot out the night before. He also allegedly gave a false name to the dispatcher, Case said.
“The third time that he called in was really to get an update with whether officers were responding or not, and in fact, he asked that the officers respond as soon as possible,” Case said.
Case said an officer arrived at the scene and encountered Afuvai, who had a 14-inch knife with an eight-inch blade. He said Afuvai began walking toward the officer, and as the officer backed up, Afuvai ran toward him.
“The subject did not respond to commands, resulting in the sergeant firing from his handgun to stop the immediate threat,” Case said. “In total, the sergeant moved backwards for approximately 15 seconds of time.”
The city’s mobile intervention team was sent to the call, and were en route when the shooting occurred, Case said.
He said officers investigated the claims Afuvai made to the dispatcher.
“I can tell you that they continued the investigation based on all the information that the subject provided in the original call,” Case said, “and we weren’t able to find any sort of crime scene or area where there was somebody else in danger or was hurt.”
Case said he can’t confirm if Afuvai had any history of mental health problems, and said he expects more will come out when the investigation wraps up. While typically the police department’s mental health clinicians haven’t been dispatched to crime scenes where a weapon is present, Case said, the department is currently training them to be able to respond to high-risk scenarios.
Afuvai is the fifth person fatally shot by Anchorage police this year.
Wesley Early covers Anchorage life and city politics for Alaska Public Media. Reach him at wearly@alaskapublic.org and follow him on X at @wesley_early. Read more about Wesley here.