State prosecutors say an Anchorage police officer was justified in fatally shooting a man in the Mountain View neighborhood in May.
On May 12, Anchorage police officer Carter Mayes stopped 41-year-old Utuva Alaelua while he was driving for a headlight issue. Police say Mayes had previously been monitoring a nearby vehicle that was associated with a felony warrant when he left to follow Alealua.
According to a state review, after Mayes stopped the car, he asked Alealua if he was armed. He replied no. As Mayes asked Alaelua to hand over his keys and step out of the vehicle, another officer shined a flashlight in the car, and noticed a firearm between Alaelua’s legs, which Mayes told investigators he also saw. As Mayes asked Alaelua to put his hands up and step out of the car, he told investigators that he saw Alaelua put his right arm down quickly toward the gun. Mayes shot Alaelua once, killing him.
Anchorage Police Chief Sean Case later said that Alaelua was not legally allowed to own a firearm and had a felony warrant for a stolen vehicle.
In a letter from the state Office of Special Prosecutions released Friday, state prosecutors found that Alaelua had lied about not having a firearm, did not comply with officers’ commands and made a sudden movement to a gun in his lap. They deemed that Mayes was legally justified in shooting Alaelua.
Mayes had previously shot someone while on duty in 2022, before police officers had body cameras — and prosecutors deemed that shooting justified. Since the state started reviewing police shootings in 2009, it has cleared all associated officers of any wrongdoing.
Alaelua’s brother, 41-year-old Puipuia Alaelua, was also shot and killed by Anchorage police in February after police say he barricaded himself in a hotel room with four children and their mother, whom he threatened with a gun. State prosecutors said the officers who shot at Puipuia Alaelua were also legally justified.
The brothers were the 12th and 13th people to be shot by Anchorage police within a 12-month period. Among those 13 people, eight people died.
