Alaska News

Man barricaded in Fairview apartment arrested

Police arrested an Anchorage man after he barricaded himself in his Fairview apartment for hours Friday.

Shane Street, 46, emerged from the complex at 1146 Karluk St. wearing a woman's wig at 2:23 p.m., according to Anchorage police spokeswoman Anita Shell. Police had been staged outside the building since around 8:30 a.m. awaiting his exit after they received a report of an armed man at the address.

Street did not answer a number of calls from police to surrender. Eventually he walked out the front door of the apartment next door in the makeshift disguise. Street managed to enter the neighboring apartment through a shared crawl space. It's where he stored two guns that police later obtained, Shell said.

Police arrested Street and took him to the Anchorage Jail. He has been charged with assault, burglary and tampering with evidence. The last two charges stem from breaking into the apartment and attempting to hide his guns, Shell said. She would not say what kind of guns. No injuries were reported, Shell said.

"We want this to end peacefully, and that's what ultimately happened," she said.

The more-than-five-hour standoff between police and a silent Street began with a 911 call from his girlfriend at 8:14 a.m. "He was threatening her with a gun," Shell said.

When police arrived they said the girlfriend was outside the complex uninjured. There didn't appear to be anyone else in the apartment, police said. A SWAT team later arrived.

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Shell said about 30 police, negotiators and SWAT members responded to the scene.

The complex houses 10 apartments and one laundry unit. The apartment building is on Karluk Street between 11th and 12th avenues. A portion of the road was closed until about 2:40 p.m.

Throughout the morning police used a public-address system to periodically communicate with Street. They notified him that they had Tasers and a K-9 unit and encouraged him to surrender.

"Open the blinds, wave your hands, open the door slowly," police said.

Their suggestions were met with silence. Shell said police received a report that Street had broken the apartment's telephone.

Across the street, Iraeroy Saunoa, 18, awoke to sirens. He watched the events unfold from inside his family's home. He's lived there for seven years.

Saunoa was scheduled to go to work as a peer mentor at the Alaska Military Youth Academy at noon, but the street barricade forced him to call off.

"This complex area is just out of control sometimes, but I don't bother them and they don't bother us," he said from his driveway about the gray-sided apartment building.

Neighbor Elijah Todd, who said he knows both Street and the girlfriend, was evacuated around 12:30 p.m.

Todd, 30, said he walked outside his home, where he lives with his mother, his brother's girlfriend and nephew at 9:30 a.m. and was faced with guns.

He said he had heard a little bit of yelling around 5:30 a.m. but didn't think twice.

"Same old noises you always hear," he said. "Yelling and cars racing around here at 100 mph."

Todd has lived in the neighborhood for 15 years. He said that gunshots, robberies and police sirens aren't an oddity in Fairview.

"It's just sad because you can't let the kids play in the front yard anymore," Todd said.

Reach Tegan Hanlon at thanlon@adn.com or 257-4589. Reporters Benjamin S. Bresch and Zaz Hollander contributed.

By TEGAN HANLON

thanlon@adn.com

Tegan Hanlon

Tegan Hanlon was a reporter for the Anchorage Daily News between 2013 and 2019. She now reports for Alaska Public Media.

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