Anchorage police have arrested a suspect in a man’s death Wednesday night, saying he repeatedly shot him after a dispute in which the victim kicked in his car window.
Mykal Nelson, 24, is charged with first- and second-degree murder in the South Anchorage shooting. Medics took the man, who hasn’t yet been named publicly, to a local hospital where he later died.
According to the charges against Nelson, this is what police say happened:
Nelson told the responding officers he had been in his car with two other men when the victim approached the vehicle on foot. He began exchanging words with the occupants, leading to him kicking first the car and then the window.
Nelson asked one of the other occupants to get a gun from a nearby home, before wrestling with the victim. When he was handed the gun, Nelson chased the man until he stopped and turned around, then shot him multiple times.
“Nelson continued to advance on (the victim) and shot him additional times after (he) had fallen to his knees,” police wrote in the charging document. “(The victim) was facing away from Nelson when Nelson came within a few steps of his head and fired a final shot into (his) temple.”
A witness recorded the incident, including a clear view of the shooting’s final moments, on a cellphone video, the charges say.
When investigators spoke with Nelson, he told them he had been living in the nearby home, but his dog wasn’t allowed inside and was being kept in the vehicle. He said the victim appeared to be on drugs and acted aggressively before kicking out the window.
Nelson told the investigators that he meant to kill the victim, allegedly telling them that he “don’t know and don’t care” when asked why he shot the man multiple times.
Nelson allegedly told a detective “the moment he kicked my window in and hurt my dog, I was not going to let that slide,” according to the charges.
Nelson is being held at the Anchorage Correctional Complex.
This is Anchorage’s sixth homicide of 2025.
