One man was killed early Saturday in a downtown Anchorage shooting, and responding officers shot and wounded another man who witnesses said had been involved, according to police.
According to an Anchorage Police Department statement, officers were making a bar-break patrol on the 700 block of West 4th Avenue at about 2:25 a.m. The officers then heard gunfire from a parking lot on the southeast corner of H Street and West 3rd Avenue, near the Nesbett Courthouse.
Police said that gunfire was from an “altercation” in the parking lot, which left one man dead at the scene and a second shot in the lower body.
Advertisement
“The number of shooters, who they are, the motive behind the shooting, and whether the parties involved were known to one another are all under investigation,” police said. “Multiple people fled the scene once the parking lot shooting occurred.”
As the patrol officers responded, police said, witnesses pointed out a man to them and said he had been involved in the shooting.
“Officers engaged the male, who was armed with a gun, near 3rd Avenue and G Street,” police said in the statement. “Two officers discharged their weapons, striking the adult male in the upper and lower body.”
Police have not named the man killed during the initial encounter in the parking lot. The two injured men were both taken to local hospitals. Police said the man wounded in the initial shooting had injuries that weren’t life-threatening, and the man shot by officers was in stable condition.
Police are asking anyone who saw the initial shooting and hasn’t yet spoken with investigators to contact them at 311. Drivers can expect street closures Saturday in the vicinity of both shooting scenes, which police say are being investigated separately.
Advertisement
The two officers involved in the subsequent shooting will be named in three days and have been placed on four days of administrative leave under standard APD policy, according to the statement. That shooting will be investigated first by the state Office of Special Prosecutions for any violations of state law, then by APD Internal Affairs for any violation of police policy.
Saturday’s encounter occurred as officers’ fatal shooting of Kristopher Handy at a Sand Lake apartment complex last month has placed the department under public scrutiny. APD Chief Designee Bianca Cross, appointed by outgoing Mayor Dave Bronson, said in a news conference hours after Handy’s May 13 death that he had raised a long gun at officers – a claim soon contradicted by a neighbor who said her surveillance footage showed otherwise. Cross also said that the four officers who shot Handy were wearing body cameras, but has said that footage will not be released until after an investigation, despite his family’s calls to do so immediately.
This story will be updated as additional details become available.
Advertisement
Advertisement
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.
JUNEAU, Alaska (KTUU) – The Supreme Court of Alaska will be taking up the case of the State of Alaska, Division of Elections v. Daniel J. Sullivan, Jr.
The oral arguments will be held Monday at 10 a.m. via Zoom, according to an order and opening notice.
The document also specifies that a decision is expected to be made before noon on Tuesday.
According to documents from the Division of Elections, the state must start printing ballots at noon on the same day.
Advertisement
This comes after an Anchorage Superior Court Judge ordered Dan J. Sullivan on to the ballot Friday.
See a spelling or grammar error? Report it to web@ktuu.com
A new home under construction in Potter Valley in Anchorage. (Loren Holmes / ADN)
This June, two very different offers reach Alaska families, and both amount to the same thing: $10,000. The difference is everything.
Bill Walker, running for governor, would hand every eligible Alaskan a one-time $10,000 check and then end the Permanent Fund dividend for good. Ask one question: Where does his $10,000 come from?
It comes from the Permanent Fund, the people’s own money and the savings Alaskans built for their children. Walker would spend that endowment once to pay Alaskans to give up the yearly dividend forever.
Think about what that does. It cancels the annual check that gives a family a reason to keep an Alaska address and replaces it with a single payout. You hand people their own savings, call it a gift and cut the tie that held them here in the same motion. It is the oldest mistake in governing money: raid what you have saved to buy a moment’s applause and call the spending generosity.
Advertisement
A plan that spends the people’s savings to send the people away is not bold. It is foolish.
Now consider the other $10,000. Through Alaska Housing Finance Corp., the state offers families up to $10,000 to build a new, energy-efficient home. AHFC raids nothing. It earns its own way. Over the years, it has returned more than $2 billion to the state treasury, and it spends some of that income the way any good business does: to win a customer.
Here, the customer is an Alaskan who wants to own a home, put down roots and stay.
That is the oldest sound move in business: Invest a little of what you earn to bring in someone who stays. The homeowner remains, the community gains a family and the corporation keeps earning. The money spent comes back. A plan that puts earnings to work to bring people home is not charity. It is clever.
Same amount. Opposite source. Opposite wisdom. One spends savings; the other spends earnings. One pays Alaskans to leave; the other pays them to stay. One empties the state; the other fills it.
Advertisement
This Homeownership Month, the choice is the size of a single check, and the whole question is where the check comes from and what it asks of you. Ten thousand dollars of your own fund, to wave you goodbye. Or $10,000, earned and reinvested, to help you stay and build.
Evan Swensen is the publisher of Publication Consultants in Anchorage and the author of “What’s the Money For: A Permanent Fund Mortgage Proposal.”
• • •
The Anchorage Daily News welcomes a broad range of viewpoints. To submit a piece for consideration, email commentary(at)adn.com. Send submissions shorter than 200 words to letters@adn.com or click here to submit via any web browser. Read our full guidelines for letters and commentaries here.
