Police: Man dead in downtown Anchorage shooting; officers shoot and injure another man believed to have been involved

A man was shot and killed early Saturday in a downtown Anchorage parking lot, and police responding shot and injured another man who witnesses said had been involved in the first shooting, police said.

The shootings happened around 2:30 a.m., police said in a written statement early Saturday. Officers were in the 700 block of West Fourth Avenue for bar break when they heard shots fired about a block away, from the parking lot at H Street and West Third Avenue, police wrote.

“Witnesses pointed out a male to officers, indicating the man had been involved in the shooting that had just occurred,” police said. “Officers engaged the male, who was armed with a gun, near West 3rd Avenue and G Street. Two officers discharged their weapons, striking the adult male in the upper and lower body.”

The man who was shot by police was taken to a hospital and was in stable condition Saturday morning, police wrote.

“Initial indications are that there was some type of altercation in the 3rd/H parking lot that culminated in shots being fired,” police wrote.

The parking lot shooting left one man dead and a second man with a gunshot wound to the lower body, police wrote. He was hospitalized with injuries considered not life-threatening, police wrote.

“The number of shooters, who they are, the motive behind the shooting, and whether the parties involved were known to one another are all under investigation,” police wrote. “Multiple people fled the scene once the parking lot shooting occurred.”

Names of the shooting victims and officers involved have not been released.

Police investigators were collecting evidence in the area Saturday morning and multiple streets were closed and sidewalks blocked. A handgun, with an evidence marker, was on the sidewalk close to the corner of Third Avenue and G Street and near where the man was shot by police. A number of officers were processing evidence in the parking lot where the initial shooting occurred just to the west. An additional area was blocked off, with evidence markers, on the sidewalk on Fourth Avenue, directly across the street from the Anchorage Police Department headquarters.

Police were asking anyone with information who hasn’t spoken with officers to call police dispatch at 311 or 907-786-8900.

Under department policy, the officers involved in the shooting have been placed on administrative leave, and the state’s Office of Special Prosecutions will investigate.

On May 13, Anchorage police officers shot and killed a man outside a West Anchorage apartment building after they said he raised a gun at them. That shooting is under investigation and has been the source of controversy after a public video emerged and raised questions about whether the man was raising a weapon when he was shot. Police have declined to release body camera video from officers while the investigation is ongoing.