Crime & Courts

2 teens arrested after threatening woman with gun at downtown Anchorage elementary school, police say

Two teenagers were arrested after they used a gun to threaten a school staff member in the parking lot of Anchorage’s Inlet View Elementary on Friday morning, police and school district officials said.

The staff member was walking into the school when the two teens brandished the weapon and made threatening statements toward her, Anchorage School District spokesman Alan Brown said in a statement.

The woman wasn’t hurt and there was no gunfire, according to police. The incident was reported around 8:10 a.m. at the school, located at 1219 N St., according to an alert from Anchorage Police Department.

The teenagers fled on foot as officers with the APD patrol division as well as school resource officer units “saturated the area” to search for them, according to police. Both were located in the area, taken into custody and arrested.

Friday was the second day of the new school year, and school staff were present at Inlet View at the time of the incident, Brown said.

The two teens are not Anchorage School District students, he said.

Charges were forwarded to state juvenile justice authorities.

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Salley Kim, 41, lives across the street from the school and has a daughter who attends Inlet View. She saw two police cars outside the school Friday morning.

“We just looked out the window and were wondering what was going on,” Kim said.

She thought the officers may have been talking to each other, she said. Later, she heard that an arrest had been made, but hadn’t heard about the threats from the teens.

She was “shocked” after hearing what happened.

“It’s a really safe neighborhood,” Kim said.

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Morgan Krakow

Morgan Krakow covers education and general assignments for the Anchorage Daily News. Before joining the ADN, she interned for The Washington Post. Contact her at mkrakow@adn.com.

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