Man arrested, charged after threats, heavy police response at downtown Anchorage hotel

This story has been updated with a new article.

Earlier story:

Police took a man into custody Friday evening after a roughly four-hour standoff at the Captain Cook Hotel in downtown Anchorage.

Officers were initially called to the hotel at 2:43 p.m. because a man was “barricaded in a room after making threats with a weapon,” police wrote in a statement. Streets surrounding the hotel were closed until about 6:30 p.m., when he was taken into custody.

John Holman, 52, was later charged with felony second-degree terroristic threatening and appeared in court Saturday afternoon. His bail was set at $5,000 and electronic monitoring will be required upon his release. Holman appears to live in Wasilla, according to public records.

Limited details were available and police did not answer questions Friday evening about the situation. Charging documents had not yet been made available Saturday afternoon.

In a statement Friday, police said there was no public threat during the standoff and said rumors circulating on social media about an active shooter were false.

“We want to ensure the public that there is a widespread social media rumor that this is an active shooter situation. That is not accurate and there is no public threat,” the statement said.

Around 3 p.m. Friday, officers had surrounded the hotel and several could be seen at 5th Avenue and K Street with guns drawn, looking up at the hotel.

Three officers at that corner waved away pedestrians and told them were was a man on a top floor threatening to shoot people and that he had access to multiple weapons. Officers with rifles were seen entering the hotel.

The police’s Special Operations team, which includes crisis negotiation officers and tactical support units, responded to the situation.

The hotel remained open throughout the standoff and inside, things appeared mostly normal.

Around 6:30 p.m. glass shattered from a window on the hotel’s top floor in the southwest tower as police took Holman into custody. He was placed in an ambulance before being transferred to the back of a police cruiser. His right foot was bandaged and appeared to have been bleeding.

This story was reported by the ADN’s Tess Williams, Zaz Hollander, Alex Demarban, Loren Holmes and Emily Mesner.