Man fatally shot in Anchorage officer-involved shooting identified
Family also says man is brother of man police fatally shot during February stand-off
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) - Family members have identified the man fatally shot by Anchorage police Monday night officer-involved shooting as 41-year-old Utuva Alaelua.
Anchorage Police Department leaders said officers pulled over the man — who was not publicly identified by authorities until Thursday afternoon — for a broken headlight near the 300 block of Bragaw Street in Mountain View.
APD Chief Sean Case said during a Tuesday news conference that officers observed a gun in the man’s lap and, after verbal commands were made, said an officer on the vehicle’s passenger side fatally shot the driver.
Case, during the news conference, could not confirm if the gun was touched before the shooting, but said there was a verbal exchange ahead of the officer firing their weapon.
Family members also told Alaska’s News Source that Utuva Alaelua’s brother, Puipuia Lipoi Alaelua, was killed during a stand-off in an Anchorage hotel in February, after police said Puipuia Lipoi Alaelua held five people hostage.
The Office of Special Prosecutions cleared the officers who fatally shot Alaelua, after saying the vehicle Alaelua was in had recently eluded police, and when authorities confronted him, he “pointed a gun at police officers, barricaded himself in a hotel room, took a woman and her four children hostage, and shot at police officers through the hotel door.”
APD is expected to address Monday’s officer-involved shooting at a May 21 press conference.
Editor’s note: This story was updated to correct Utuva Alaelua’s age, which was originally given by his family as 42.
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