Anchorage police have arrested a suspect and his girlfriend after a shooting in Mountain View Friday evening that left a man dead.
According to a police statement, Paul Baldwin Jr., 33 was initially arrested on an unrelated warrant with further charges pending in the death of Treyndon Lewis, 42. Chontae Ivery, 30, was arrested on three non-homicide charges during the investigation.
According to a charging document against Ivery, police received reports of the shooting near North Bunn Street and Thompson Avenue at about 6:15 p.m. Friday. Responding officers found Lewis lying on the ground outside, shot several times and alive but unresponsive. He was taken to a local hospital, where he was declared dead.
A witness told police the suspected shooter had left the scene in a pickup truck driven by a Thompson Street resident. About 90 minutes later, a woman who knew the driver called police, saying he told her the suspect had forced him to drive away at gunpoint.
When police spoke with the driver, they said he initially repeated that account – but his story changed “when confronted about inconsistencies in his statements.” The man allegedly admitted that both the suspect and Ivery – whom he identified as the suspect’s girlfriend – had gotten into the pickup with him. He said he drove them to the nearby Red Apple grocery store and went inside, and they were gone when he stepped back outside.
“After follow-up questioning, he admitted that he drove Ivery and the shooter from the scene immediately following the shooting, and that Ivery contacted him and asked him to destroy any evidence on the truck that would assist police in identifying the shooter,” police said in the charging document.
Police said the driver did not clean the truck before police contacted him, and they seized the vehicle as evidence.
It’s unclear what led up to the shooting.
The police statement did not provide that information. Police spokeswoman Shelly Wozniak declined further comment Monday, citing the ongoing investigation.
Police said by Sunday that they had spoken with everyone involved, and that the incident didn’t pose a greater threat to public safety.
Court records show that Ivery was arrested Sunday and charged with attempted evidence tampering and hindering prosecution, as well as violating conditions of her release in a prior felony assault case. She was still being held Monday at the Hiland Mountain Correctional Center.
It wasn’t immediately clear Monday whether Baldwin was still being held.
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.
