Two teenagers are in custody after allegedly robbing a man and his juvenile brother near the Bragaw Street KFC early Sunday morning.
The man and his brother called 911 from a Holiday gas station on Bragaw Street shortly before 2 a.m., alerting the Anchorage Police Department to the incident, APD spokeswoman Renee Oistad said in a statement.
Oistad explained the man and his brother were on the sidewalk near KFC when the two suspects approached and one of them pointed a gun at the man’s chest. The gunman demanded the man’s wallet and the two began to struggle over the gun. The other suspect grabbed the man’s wallet from his sweatshirt pocket but lost his grip on it and flung it away, Oistad wrote, adding that officers later found it in the woods near where the robbery occurred.
The gunman struck the man in the face with the gun and then both suspects fled on foot.
The man declined medical treatment for his injuries, and his brother was uninjured during the altercation, Oistad said.
Shortly after the victims called 911, police officers saw the two suspects walking on Bragaw Street near Fourth Avenue. The suspects took off running when police ordered them to stop, but Oistad said the suspect who’d earlier had the gun was caught “pretty quickly.”
K-9 Handler Officer Brandon Otts and K-9 Midas. Photo: Anchorage Police Department
The other suspect continued to run toward the pedestrian tunnel near the Glenn Highway, Oistad said, at which point a K-9 officer arrived and told him to stop or the dog would be released. Oistad said when the suspect did not stop, K-9 Midas was released and knocked him down. Police took him into custody and drove him to a hospital for treatment of a dog bite to his left leg, Oistad wrote.
She said both suspects are 17 years old and have so far been charged as juveniles. The suspect who allegedly had the gun, which was not recovered, faces charges of second-degree robbery and fourth-degree assault. The second suspect, who K-9 Midas helped bring into custody, was charged with second-degree robbery, third- and fourth-degree assault, and resisting arrest.
Both suspects are in custody at the McLaughlin Youth Center in Anchorage, according to Oistad.
