Man accused of Anchorage trail assaults released from jail — then arrested again after threatening more hikers

A man who was arrested Friday after police said he threatened or assaulted more than a dozen strangers on Anchorage trails last week was released from jail the next day, then was arrested again for threatening more hikers.

Sean Ahmed, 38, is now in custody at the Anchorage Correctional Complex. He was released Saturday when state prosecutors declined to pursue the charges and referred the case to the municipality. He was arrested again on Sunday.

Some of the assault victims said in interviews this week they were troubled by how quickly Ahmed was released, and wondered why there had been no public safety notifications given the repeated nature of the random attacks.

Ahmed has struggled with worsening mental illness during the last two years, according to his family. He was admitted to an inpatient behavioral health facility in the Mat-Su during the fall and spent several days at Alaska Psychiatric Institute in March, said his sister, Ren Gallagher.

A string of attacks

Police last week reported details about eight incidents — one to two per day, Monday through Friday — in which people were threatened or physically assaulted while walking on hiking and multi-use trails around Anchorage, mostly on the city’s east side. Some victims posted about the assaults on social media to warn others.

[Man arrested after several people report being assaulted, threatened on East Anchorage trails]

The encounters involved a man who yelled threats, threw rocks and punched people he encountered. None of the victims had met the attacker before, according to police and victims interviewed by the Daily News. None received injuries serious enough to require hospitalization, according to police reports.

Ahmed was arrested in late June for a similar attack near Taku Lake in South Anchorage, according to a probable cause statement written by an assistant municipal attorney and attached with charges.

Chingwen McGrevy was on a midday hike Thursday with a coworker when she encountered a man holding what appeared to be an ax a few miles in from the Basher Drive trailhead on the Hillside. She said the man threatened to kill her and her companion. Later, they returned to their cars to find that their tires had been slashed.

Hours later, Catherine Mannix was walking with her daughter on the North Gasline Trail near Basher when a man on a bike punched her in the head, knocking her off her feet and into the bushes and rocks, she said.

Mannix said she has minor bruising from the assault, and was left shaken by the encounter.

Ahmed was arrested Friday on assault charges stemming from the two Thursday incidents, police said.

He appeared at the Anchorage Correctional Complex courtroom Saturday for an initial hearing where bail conditions are typically determined. The state declined to pursue charges because they “did not rise to felony level as no instance involved a weapon and a victim fearing death or critical injury,” said Sam Curtis, a spokesman for the Alaska Department of Law, which prosecutes felony-level crimes.

The state referred the case to the Municipal Prosecutor’s Office because the charges should be handled as misdemeanors, Curtis said. Municipal prosecutors did not process the case on Saturday due to a timing issue, Acting Municipal Prosecutor Dustin Pearson said.

When the state declined the charges during Saturday’s hearing, Ahmed was no longer facing criminal charges that required incarceration or bail, so he was released.

Gallagher, Ahmed’s sister, listened to that hearing over the phone from her home in Wisconsin and said she was stunned.

“I was very upset because I thought at least if he was in custody, he could get help,” she said.

‘What was that solving?’

By Sunday afternoon, Ahmed was back at the Basher Drive trailhead.

He has been living mostly in the woods, his sister said. Ahmed sometimes goes to his father’s home to eat, but then will leave for days at a time, she said.

Just before 3:30 p.m. on Sunday, Ahmed came out of the woods with a 6- or 7-foot stick and confronted a group of three people who were walking on the trail, according to a statement of probable cause written by Assistant Municipal Prosecutor Lawrence Monsma. One of the people recognized him as the man who had assaulted others on the trail system last week, the statement said.

The hikers aimed bear spray at Ahmed and he threw the stick and walked away from them, according to the probable cause statement. Police arrived and Ahmed was arrested on a charge of third-degree assault.

McGrevy, who was threatened while hiking Thursday, said she learned from a social media post that Ahmed had been released and rearrested over the weekend.

“That was a little bit upsetting, because, what was that solving?” she said. “I was hoping he would be in custody longer, because his behavior, it wasn’t the first time.”

Mannix, who was also assaulted on Thursday, found out that Ahmed had attacked more people after speaking with a police officer Sunday.

“The public should have been notified that he was released on Saturday,” she said in a message.

Police spokeswoman Cherie Zajdzinski said in an email that APD is not notified by the Department of Corrections when someone is released from custody.

Back in custody

Ahmed is currently being held in jail for the latest charge on $1,000 bail with additional restrictions, including that he would need a court-approved person to monitor him upon release. Pearson said the bail was substantial, especially considering that Ahmed doesn’t have a serious criminal history.

“Our office takes this case very seriously,” Monsma said. “The allegations, because of multiple open cases, are very concerning. And given our concerns about the ability of every citizen to use our trails, this is a priority.”

The investigation into other assaults is ongoing, according to police.

Gallagher said she’s worried about her brother, and said he needs mental health treatment.

During the last few years, Gallagher said she’s watched her brother transform into a stranger. He can’t hold a job, doesn’t eat, doesn’t shower and it seems as if he is living in an alternate reality, she said.

A competency hearing was scheduled in one of the cases involving Ahmed, and Gallagher said she’s hopeful he will receive a psychiatric evaluation and care.

“People are seeing him as this horrible monster and that’s not who he is — it’s the mental health issues he has going on,” she said.