Police seek suspect in fatal shooting at Anchorage homeless camp

Police say they are searching for a person suspected to be involved in a fatal shooting at a homeless camp east of downtown Anchorage on Thursday morning.

The shooting took place in broad daylight at a camp located along a busy stretch of East 5th Avenue just east of Karluk Street. Yellow police tape surrounded an area of about a dozen tents.

Officers responded to reports of a man injured after at least one shot was fired at the camp around 10:15 a.m., police said. The officers found the man with a wound to his upper body, they said. He was declared dead at the scene.

A photo of the suspect was provided to officers and the department on Thursday morning released it and asked for the public’s help locating him. They urged the public not to approach the man but to call 911 with his location.

“A large perimeter was set up and a suspect search was conducted with the aid of a drone,” police said. “Ultimately the suspect was not located, and the perimeter was broken down.”

Few additional details were available about the homicide investigation by Thursday afternoon. Police said the motive for the shooting and whether the involved parties knew each other were part of the ongoing investigation. They also would not confirm that he left the area on a bicycle.

Anyone with information about the suspect, aside from his location, is asked to call dispatch at 311, option 1, or 907-786-8900, option 0. Information can be submitted anonymously online.

This is the third homicide in Anchorage this week. A man was fatally shot in an East Anchorage alley early Saturday. A man was arrested Sunday after he called police to report he had strangled and stabbed his friend inside a West Anchorage apartment, according to charges filed in the case.

At least one other fatal shooting has been reported at a homeless camp this year. Witnesses at a camp on Fairbanks Street south of West 40th Avenue told police in June that two men fired shots throughout the camp during an attempted robbery, charges filed in the case said. Farrel Siulua, 30, died at the scene and another man was wounded, police said.

Last week, a man was accused of firing a shotgun at people in a Midtown homeless encampment. No one was injured, and the man was arrested on a series of charges tied to the incident.

Ten years ago, two people were killed in a camp in the same area as Thursday’s shooting.

Mae Melovidov, 47, and Robert Workman, 55, were inside a tent with a third person in March 2014 when a man entered the campsite, pulled the tent door open, and fired several shots at the people inside, police said. Melovidov and Workman died and the third person was critically injured. The man fled on foot.

That case remains unsolved.