An Anchorage police K-9 helped apprehend a 23-year-old man who is accused of invading three apartments and stabbing a man in a crime spree Thursday morning.
Police charged 23-year-old Shane Mike with first-degree assault, third-degree assault, third-degree theft and three counts of first-degree burglary. Already on felony probation for burglary, he was remanded to the Anchorage Correctional Complex.
Early Thursday morning, the Anchorage Police Department received three separate calls from people who said that a man had broken into or unlawfully entered their homes. In one case, the intruder stabbed a man, according to a statement from APD. The suspect targeted apartment complexes on the corner of DeBarr Road and Norman Street.
The first call, around 3:20 a.m., was from a man who said “an intoxicated male had entered his apartment” and “threatened him with a letter opener,” police said. The intruder then allegedly made the victim light a cigarette for him and sat down while the victim locked himself in a bedroom and phoned police. While the victim was on the phone with dispatch, the intruder left the apartment.
The second call to police, about 20 minutes later, came from a woman in another apartment nearby. She said that a man she did not know, who she also described as intoxicated, broke into her apartment and shouted at two residents who the intruder said had stolen money from him, police said. The intruder then got into a fight with a 25-year-old man in the apartment, stabbing him in the back.
The stabbing victim, whose lung was punctured, was taken to a local hospital for treatment.
Matthew Fardiq, a friend of the stabbing victim, lives with his 6-month-old son Ryder and fiancee in the apartment across the hall.
“They woke up and there was somebody in their house,” Fardig said. “He had gotten a bunch of their personal possessions while they were sleeping.”
The stabbing victim, whose lung was punctured, was taken to a local hospital for treatment.
Stephen Lupien says the suspect tried to get into his home too.
“My room is pretty close to the door so I could hear it slam,” said Lupien, who had forgotten to lock the front door.
Lupien says his dog Tanner was ready for the intruder and sounded the alert.
“He (the suspect) probably opened the door and took a a step in and realized there was a pit bull,” said Lupien.” “Thank god he scared whoever it was who was trying to enter the house.”
More than a dozen officers and a K-9 responded and combed the area for the suspect.
A few minutes before 4 a.m., a third caller reported that an unknown man had entered his apartment in the same area.
“The homeowners thought the intruder had used their bathroom and then left,” the APD statement said.
Not long after the third call, police and K-9 Aerie spotted Mike about 100 yards away from the apartment where he allegedly stabbed the 25-year-old man.
“He was giving them a hard time they definitely had a fight on their hand, he was screaming and cussing and hollering at them,” said witness Kyli Oskolkoff. ”We jumped up out of bed looked out the window and the cops were all out here and had the gentleman pinned behind this tree down here.”
Oskolkoff said the suspect had been tased.
Aerie was “deployed when the suspect refused to comply with police,” the statement says.
–This is a developing story.