APD shoots, wounds man

[213th]

My bro works for this agency, second shooting in his area since Sept. (He wasn't involved with either)

http://www.adn.com/news/alaska/crime...-8476374c.html


Police shot and wounded a man Monday morning on a West Anchorage street near an elementary school, causing parents and children on their way to classes to take cover.


Glenn Cooper, 26, of Anchorage, was taken to a local hospital for treatment of a gunshot wound to his arm. Police say he underwent surgery and was listed in fair condition.

Police were revealing little information about the incident.

Spokesman Lt. Paul Honeman would not say if Cooper had a gun or threatened anyone. One witness said the man was shot from behind by a police officer as he sped off in a pickup.

Honeman said a woman walking her dog called 911 around 8:30 a.m. to report a suspicious person in an idling pickup near Carleton Avenue and McKenzie Drive, just off Northern Lights Boulevard. The woman told police she was concerned the man was casing the neighborhood for a burglary or might prey on kids on their way to school.

When two patrol officers approached the pickup about 10 minutes later, they beamed flashlights on the driver's face and tapped on the windows, a witness said.

"He was sitting upright with his eyes closed, looking very strange," said Angie Hansen, who passed the scene with her two young daughters on the way to Turnagain Elementary School. "My daughter actually turned to me and said, 'That man looks dead.' "

Hansen dropped one daughter off at school and was walking home with the younger one about a minute later when she saw two officers smashing the windows of the truck, she said. The man, who now had his eyes open, was hitting the gas so hard that the truck was spinning and skidding on the icy road, she said.

One officer pulled out a gun and fired two shots, Hansen said. She scooped up her 3-year-old daughter and ran back to the school playground, the nearest cover.

Police would not say how many shots were fired.

Hansen's husband, Matthew Hansen, said people on the street at the time ducked and ran for shelter.

"A third or fourth-grade little boy was hiding under our porch," he said. Hansen said he invited the boy in, but the child preferred to wait for his mother, whom he called on a cell phone.

Police say Cooper abandoned the truck and left a trail of blood as he fled on foot, trying to hide in nearby homes.

A woman who lives down the street from the shooting said she was sleeping when she heard someone pounding on her townhouse door. When Jean Thompson looked out her window, she saw the back of a man running away and police officers swarming into the neighborhood. Later, she found a bloody handprint on her sliding glass door, she said.

As neighbors cautiously peeked out front doors, police ordered them to stay inside, Thompson said.

Cooper eventually hid in a woman's garage, police and witnesses said.

Police cordoned off the area, and detectives were on the scene Monday morning. Turnagain Elementary School was locked down briefly as a precaution.

As part of standard procedure in officer-involved shootings, the officer or officers were put on administrative leave and the Police Department is conducting an investigation, Honeman said.

After the shooting, police identified the man shot as Cooper, who had an outstanding warrant for his arrest for violating his probation on a felony theft conviction. They also discovered the pickup, a 2002 Toyota, had been reported stolen from East Anchorage in November.

Cooper was taken into police custody for the outstanding warrant. He had not been charged with anything relating to Monday's incident, although police anticipate charges, they said. They would not say what the charges would be.

Cooper's shooting was at least the fourth officer-involved shooting in a year by Anchorage police. In two of those, including Cooper's, the suspect was shot and injured. In one, police shot and killed Charles Dobson, who had shot his girlfriend.

Internal police investigations on the previous three incidents concluded police did nothing wrong.

[JLK]

good to see a department that is not scared to pull the trigger.

[213th]

Knowing Anchorage, they should proabably do it more often...buwhaha...Anchorage isn't that bad. They had 19 homicides in 2006, and the population is 260,000