A 33-year-old Point Hope man was charged with the murder of a relative after a shooting on Aug. 14, court documents say. The suspect was taken into custody, officials said.
“There is no remaining threat to Point Hope,” the Inupiat Community of the Arctic Slope’s Department of Emergency Management staff said in a public safety message on Aug. 15.
North Slope Borough Police Department officers received a call from dispatch at about 5:30 p.m. Wednesday about a man who had shot himself in a residence on the eastern side of Point Hope, close to AJ’s Store, according to a probable cause statement signed by officer Anthony Recco in support of a criminal complaint filed against the suspect.
Police officers and medics responded to the house and found Peter Frankson lying on the floor in the living room with a gunshot wound to his head, the probable cause statement said. Frankson was pronounced dead at the scene, according to the statement.
Officers saw Lennie Tuzroyluk, Frankson’s nephew, standing in the entryway of the residence and showing signs of intoxication, the statement said.
Tuzroyluk told officers that he and Frankson got in a physical altercation before fighting over a rifle, and he said Frankson pulled the trigger, according to the probable cause statement.
Officers observed that the round had been ejected from the rifle manually, and when they asked about it, Tuzroyluk said he’d done that and repositioned the weapon with his uncle’s body because he was “nervous and scared,” the probable cause statement said. Officers also noted observations from the scene that appeared to potentially conflict with some information Tuzroyluk told them about the shooting, the statement said.
Police officers arrested Tuzroyluk and he was charged with first-degree murder, fourth-degree assault, fourth-degree misconduct involving weapons and tampering with physical evidence, according to online court records.
Point Hope City Mayor Tariek Oviok, who was away from his community for a work trip this week, said it was too soon to make statements about the incident.
“Bottom line: we don’t know what’s going on,” Oviok said. “We have to be sensitive to our communities ... gathering all the information first.”