On Monday morning, Anchorage police responded to a reported shooting in a vehicle near Creekside Park at 7122 E. 6th Ave. Two people, a man and a woman, were found with at least one gunshot wound each to their upper body and were taken to the hospital.
Then it got even more interesting. Local schools went into stay-put mode as police searched for the gunman, who was located in the 700-block of Muldoon Road. The man shot at police, and an officer was struck by a bullet in his leg. He was taken to a local hospital and is expected to survive.
For a time, access to Muldoon Elementary School was limited as police blocked the roadway on 6th. Also impacted by the stay-put orders were Bartlett High School and Creekside Elementary. Police staged around the mobile home park and fired nonlethal projectiles at the mobile home where the man was barricaded. A large police presence was augmented by firefighters and medics, as well as an Alaska State Troopers helicopter and drones.
The Anchorage School District reached out to parents on Tuesday and reassured them that it was safe to send their children to schools in the area of the shooting.
Unlike the situation in North Pole last week, where administrators would not allow a parent to pick up his child during a tense conflict of unknown importance somewhere else on the campus of North Pole High School, the Anchorage Police updated the community repeatedly throughout the situation through postings on Facebook.
Anchorage Mayor Suzanne LaFrance did not offer an immediate public apology to the officer’s family for his sacrifice in the line of duty, unlike in August, when immediately after an officer-involved shooting, LaFrance apologized to the family of the deceased individual, a teenager who had been witnessed threatening people with a knife. LaFrance then said the shooting of the menacing individual should not have happened and said she would launch an investigation into the police.
LaFrance and the Anchorage Assembly’s liberal majority have been highly critical of police in Anchorage for using lethal force to stop violent criminals, which have become an increasing problem in Anchorage.
It is unclear if the pressure from the Anchorage Assembly and the mayor led to the use of less-lethal response in this incident, which may have then led to the officer being shot.
