A man was injured in an early morning home invasion shooting in Northeast Anchorage, police say.
Around 12:30 a.m. Thursday, police were called to the 200 block of Zappa Place near Muldoon Road after three men wearing ski masks reportedly broke into a home and tried to rob one of the people inside.
A 26-year-old man in the home was shot multiple times, the Anchorage Police Department said. The victim was taken to a local hospital with severe but non-life-threatening wounds, APD spokeswoman Jennifer Castro said in a statement, and the trio reportedly fled in a vehicle.
Scott Lofthouse, an APD patrol officer who responded to the shooting, remarked that the recent shootings remind him of Anchorage in the mid-90s.
“We used to be pretty violent as a city back in the mid-90s. I’m not sure of the exact reason behind all the shootings but we have had an extraordinary amount of them really over the last year,” said Lofthouse, who is a former gang intelligence officer.
Uncooperative victims make the job harder, Lofthouse said.
“The main problem that we’re running into is that many of these scenes, these house parties and these home-invasion robberies, the victims aren’t being very cooperative,” he said. “And if the victims aren’t cooperative we don’t get a whole lot of information and we don’t have a lot of leads to work with.”
No arrests or charges have been made as of late Thursday morning, Castro said, and the home invasion remains under investigation.
“The event appears to have been targeted and possibly drug related,” Castro wrote.
Police ask anyone with information to call APD at 786-8900. Tips can be reported anonymously via Crime Stoppers by calling 561-STOP or going online.
–This is a developing story.