Anchorage police apprehend shooting suspect after officer wounded in standoff

An Anchorage police officer was shot and wounded Monday afternoon as law enforcement officers tried to apprehend a man suspected of shooting two people earlier in the day at an East Anchorage park, police said.

The shooting led to an hourslong standoff that interrupted school activities at several locations and closed Muldoon Road before the suspect was taken into custody around 5:30 p.m. Monday.

Shortly after 11:20 a.m. Monday, police responded to the parking lot at Creekside Park in reference to a shooting, Anchorage Police Chief Sean Case told reporters Monday evening. A man and a woman had been shot in the upper body, and were taken to the hospital with wounds that Case described as not life-threatening. Initial information indicated the two victims were involved in a confrontation with a man they didn’t know who then shot them, Case said.

With citizens’ help, officers located the suspect at a mobile home park in the 700 block of Muldoon Road, according to Case. The man fired on an officer, hitting him in the leg, and the officer was taken to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, Case said.

The man barricaded himself in the mobile home in a standoff with officers, police said. It wasn’t clear whether he lived at the mobile home where he was barricaded, Case said.

By Monday afternoon, dozens of Anchorage police officers were staged around the entrance to the Rangeview Mobile Home Park, where an officer could be seen firing less-lethal projectiles toward a home from a tactical SWAT vehicle. Case said officers did not fire lethal rounds during the standoff. A K-9 officer was present at the scene, and Anchorage firefighters and medics were nearby.

An Alaska State Troopers helicopter flew overhead, and Case said troopers and police SWAT officers provided additional investigation support.

Multiple schools in the area enacted “stay-put” mode, canceled bus routes and asked guardians to pick up students individually. Northbound Muldoon Road had been closed between East 11th and East Sixth avenues Monday afternoon.

Officers earlier were trying to evacuate people from homes in the trailer park, Anchorage police Sgt. Jesse Frey said just before 4 p.m.

“Evacuating an entire trailer park takes a lot of time and effort and not everybody wants to go,” he said.

Officers asked people standing outside a nearby bar several times to move because a man was firing shots and they were in the line of fire.

“We don’t know how many rounds he’s got,” Frey said. He referred additional questions to a department spokeswoman.

Police said in an update around 5:30 p.m. that the man had been taken into custody and would be questioned at the police department by detectives. Law enforcement would remain in the area to process the scene, they said.

The standoff disturbed bus routes and pick-up routines at several nearby schools.

Families with students at Bartlett High School received a message saying that three bus routes would not be running Monday afternoon due to the police investigation and that parents should use the visitor parking lot to pick up students.

Students who ride the three buses were asked to meet in the cafeteria after school to wait for parent pick-up and will be escorted to their guardians’ vehicles, according to a letter to families.

Begich Middle School students were also being held at school for pickup on specific walking or bus routes, Anchorage School District officials said.

Families at Muldoon and Creekside Park elementary schools were asked to pick up students one by one at the front office at 2:30 p.m. Monday, according to district spokesman Corey Allen Young. District officials didn’t believe there is a threat in the school based on information from police but are asking parents to pick up students “out of an abundance of caution,” he said.

Officials said they were informed around 11:30 a.m. that Creekside Park Elementary was in lockdown mode, but shortly after, the school was directed to go into a less restrictive stay-put mode. Muldoon Elementary was also in stay-put mode Monday afternoon along with Anchorage STrEaM Academy.

“All students were safe at all times,” Kersten Johnson-Struempler, the district’s deputy chief of schools, told reporters Monday evening.