Anchorage Police: OIS Press Conference August 18, 2026

Good evening. The information that I'm going to provide today is preliminary, based on body-worn cameras, dash cameras, and information that's in our computer-aided dispatch system. Additional clarification will be made at our second press conference. Anytime we have an officer-involved shooting, it's a tragic story, whether it's the incident itself, whether it's the events leading up to the incident, or the impact that these incidents have on so many different people.

This particular case is one of those incidents where we had a lot of time we had a lot of resources that we brought out. We did all the right things. And at the end of the day, we still sometimes get in a position where we're reacting to somebody that's in front of us, no matter how well we prepare to go into the incident that we're facing. Earlier this afternoon at approximately 1:34, we received a call from the Adelaide, which is a multi-unit living facility at 9th and Cordova. Regarding an intoxicated adult female threatening suicide by gun.

While en route to the call, officers were advised that the female pointed a gun at the caller, the complainant that was, uh, notifying us, as well as another staff member at the facility. Officers started arriving on scene at approximately 1:40. Over the next 1 hour and 3 minutes, We did a series of things to try to not only contain the incident but prepare to handle this particular incident the best we could. We used our Mobile Intervention Team as well as our crisis negotiators to attempt contact. They were able to establish some contact throughout that hour and 3 minutes, although none of the contact was meaningful.

They used loudspeakers, attempted phone contact, and were able to get just short spurts of contact with the female inside. We had on-duty SWAT members immediately respond with special equipment that they have available to them. We also initiated a full-team SWAT call-out for the incident, and we got a lot of equipment and individuals on scene besides our Mobile Intervention Team and our crisis negotiators. We got less lethal tools. We had drones that were available to us.

We had ballistic equipment to include a ballistic vehicle that was en route. We established containment on the vehicle. We evacuated the majority of the occupants. We contacted the school that was across the street and advised them of the incident so that they would stay inside the school. We established that two felony crimes had been committed.

We communicated those felony crimes the best that we could to the subject and advised her that she was under arrest for those felony crimes. At approximately 2:01, the subject was seen in the window. At this point, we had an internal drone that was inside the hallway of the complex that was monitoring the front door. We also had officers outside that were able to see inside of the window and were able to observe that the subject had the gun and was pointing it at the front door of the apartment, uh, many times prior to the officers firing around. The subject was seen in the window and pointing the gun in the direction of officers as well as the school.

Again, we'll get more details on the circumstances surrounding the decision to make, uh, to shoot, uh, in the second, uh, press conference. We've not done the interview with the involved officer at this time. Uh, we do know that an officer fired— one single officer fired a single round striking the subject in the upper body. Officers made entrance into the apartment where the female was pronounced deceased on scene. No less lethal options were used during the incident.

The incident was captured on body-worn camera as well as on dash camera.

In this particular call, um, I was en route to something and I heard the entire call start to finish, and this was a call that I've heard many, many times. And able to hear the way the call developed, all the resources being called. We had the right personnel, we had the right equipment, we had containment, we had communication, evacuation. And like so many times, we've had calls like this in the past that have ended in a safe resolution and taking the individual into custody. Sometimes you just can't control everything.

Sometimes, believe it or not, we control the behavior of other people. And sometimes we just can't control the behavior of other people. And in this case, we had a suicidal intoxicated individual that made a decision that put the public at risk. And with that, I'll take questions.

Yes, sir. How was it determined that the individual involved was suicidal? Was that based on the call that was made to APD? The call for service that came into us indicated that she was intoxicated and suicidal. And had a gun.

Uh, Chris Adlin, Anchorage Daily News. You mentioned two crimes the woman committed, or, you know, was under arrest for. What were the two offenses? Both of them were weapons offense, fear assault with a gun. One for the caller that was a staff member, and one for another staff member that was in the residence.

Yes, sir. When it comes to situations like these, are there standardized rules of engagement for APD? And if so, is that available on your website? That's kind of a difficult question. Some of the information is available on our website through policies.

Some of it's through our training. But ultimately, what I've outlined is kind of the rules of engagement. We want to contain the scene. We want to make sure that we minimize the risk to the public. We want to make sure that anybody in and around the area is evacuated.

Again, that's not only part of the containment but part of getting people out of that inner perimeter and sometimes an outer perimeter depending upon what type of weapon somebody has. We want to establish contact, try to establish rapport with the individual. Ultimately, I mean, over an hour and 3 minutes, why these are generally successful is during that period of time we have some highly trained individuals that have a lot of skill in communicating with people in crisis. And we see over and over again that communication leads to people actively surrendering. You know, part of that process when we communicate with folks in crisis, whether they've committed a crime or not, we know we have alcohol on board, we know there's suicidal tendencies.

You know, ultimately, we're trying to connect with the person to get them help. The crimes in— once we're in that crisis negotiation phase really becomes secondary with the communication that we're trying to establish and the rapport we're trying to establish. Ultimately, I think we can all agree that based on these types of circumstances and similar calls that there's some underlying conditions. We'll take care of the criminal stuff. And, and, you know, that's the heart of, of what our protocol is.

We obviously then have the tactical teams that are responding with specialized equipment in case they have to make entry or in case they have to engage in a way that's, you know, higher level tactical, higher risk. But the thing that we established very, very early on in these incidents, as was the case today, was communication and try to establish that one-on-one rapport with either a mobile intervention team clinician or a crisis negotiator. I have a question. Do we know anything about the relationship between the subject and the caller? Do we know if they live together?

Was it domestic violence? Do we know anything on that? There's staff on scene at this particular location, so whatever staffing services are provided at the Adelaide. That's— those are the victims. Yep.

Um, Chris, Adam with the ADN again. Um, at what point was this person shot? It sounds like it might have been after they pointed a gun out the window at the school across the street and officers, but was that when the officer took the shot? And then can you also say where the officer was at the scene? Was this an officer shooting, you know, at the building from outside?

Yeah, the, the Well, I won't get specifics on what caused the officer to make the decision. I can tell you that within close proximity of when the officer fired a round was when the individual was pointing a gun out the window. This was in a third-story window and officers were outside on ground level. General, is Seattle considered an assisted living facility? Technically, I don't think it's considered an assisted living facility.

So I apologize, I don't have that clarification. Thank you.