Anchorage police are still looking for the man they believe stole a running car with a toddler inside on New Year’s Day and has allegedly stolen two more vehicles since.
Court documents explain the series of events that led the Anchorage Police Department to their search for 37-year-old Bruce Allen King.
In a criminal complaint filed Jan. 11, Anchorage Police Department officer Charles Baker writes that an Anchorage father contacted APD on Jan. 1 to report his car stolen. The man left his 3-year-old daughter in a running vehicle, with keys in the ignition, while he went back inside his apartment to grab his 1-year-old child. He returned to find out his vehicle had been stolen.
While searching for the vehicle, Officer Baker stated dispatch notified him the car had been spotted at a residence in the 3000 block of East 17th Avenue.
“I talked with [renter name] who stated she did not see the stolen vehicle in the driveway in the last 10 or 15 minutes. While I was standing on the porch a white adult male ran up to the porch. When he saw me I startled him. He shook my hand and I asked him why he was running and he stated, ‘It was cold out,'” the document reads.
Seeing no vehicle matching the description of the stolen car, Officer Baker cleared the residence. Shortly after, according to the complaint, the vehicle was found behind the Brown Jug liquor store on Bragaw Street. Employees at Napoli’s Pizza next door to the store told police a man came inside and said “there is a stolen car parked out back with a baby inside” before asking to call police, the court document states.
The child was recovered unharmed.
Surveillance footage from Napoli’s Pizza showing Bruce Allen King. (Courtesy of Napoli’s Pizza.)
When explaining what the man looked like, the employees’ description was oddly familiar: a white male, between 5 feet 8 inches to 5 feet 10 inches tall, skinny build, with red scruffy short facial hair, wearing a green-brown puffy jacket and a green beanie-type hat.
“He described the male who came running up to me at [the E 17th Ave. residence] to a identical (sic) match of the person I contacted,” wrote Officer Baker.
Officers went back to the residence and asked the woman living there whom the officer had spoken to earlier. She told police the man goes by “Red” and she didn’t know his real name. The man left on foot, she said, and showed officers several rooms in the home, except a room with a keypad on the door. The complaint states the woman said the room was “locked and she would have to get a hold of him, because she did not know his pass code.”
She waited a long time, according to the document, before she told police that one of her friends took Red to the Carrs at Northway Mall. The complaint says once police made contact with the friend, he stated, “Red told him he was mad because of a child, but would not talk anymore about it.”
On Jan. 11, Officer Baker identified a picture of King as the man he shook hands with, and later employees at Napoli’s Pizza identified King’s photo out of a lineup as the man from New Year’s Day “without hesitation.”
Less than a week later, King crossed paths with APD again.
On Monday, King was spotted in a Dodge Dakota that had been reported stolen from Boniface Boulevard the day before, according to a Nixle alert from APD. Police spokesperson Renee Oistad noted that there were several firearms in the truck when it was stolen. A female passenger in the vehicle with King complied with officers’ orders to exit the truck, but King attempted to drive off. The truck got stuck in the snow and he ran away, Oistad wrote.
While police searched for King, a man checking his mail saw an APD officer and approached them, leaving his vehicle running nearby. Oistad stated while the driver was talking to police, King allegedly jumped into the vehicle and began driving away. When the man ran after his vehicle, the two got into an altercation — both physical and verbal — until the man was forced to let go of the door, letting King escape.
King is facing a charge of reckless endangerment, multiple charges of vehicle theft and two counts of third-degree assault.
Anyone with information on King’s whereabouts is asked to call APD at 907-786-8900. Those wishing to remain anonymous can submit a tip via Anchorage Crime Stoppers online or by calling 907-561-7867.
KTVA 11’s Daniella Rivera can be reached via email or on Facebook and Twitter.
The post Court docs: APD officer shook hands with suspect wanted for stealing car with toddler inside appeared first on KTVA 11.
