Anchorage Daily News

An Anchorage man who got into a spat with his girlfriend after allegedly smooching another woman outside his Spenard home early New Year's Day wound up hospitalized after he pulled a gun on his girlfriend and she fought back, Anchorage police said Friday.

Asipeli Vatuvei, 28, has been charged with felony assault and reckless endangerment following the dispute outside the apartment he shares with his girlfriend at about 5:30 a.m. New Year's Day, police said.

Police say that's when they were summoned to the apartment at 1406 West 47th Ave. on a report of a man shot once in the back. Officers determined Vatuvei, his girlfriend and another woman were the source of the disturbance.

"They had been at a bar on the east side of town and they had just gotten home from there when all of this took place," police spokeswoman Marlene Lammers said. After the girlfriend got out of the vehicle, she "turned around to see her boyfriend kissing another woman and that's what started the argument."

It was unclear what happened to the other woman, but she was apparently not involved in the ensuing dispute, Lammers said.

During the spat, Vatuvei allegedly pulled a handgun and fired a shot at his girlfriend, missing her, police said.

His girlfriend, whose name wasn't released because the case involves domestic violence, then charged at him, trying to wrest control of the weapon, according to police. During the struggle, the weapon discharged and grazed Vatuvei in the back.

Lammers said the girlfriend has not been charged with anything and it appears from her story that she was within her rights to defend herself.

Vatuvei was taken to a local hospital, where he was treated for his superficial injury and released, Lammers said.

He was arrested Thursday evening on charges of third-degree assault for the attack on his girlfriend and reckless endangerment for discharging the weapon in the complex, Lammers said.

"If you're shooting any kind of a weapon in an apartment building, you run the risk of shooting other people," she said.

According to court records, the only criminal case Vatuvei was previously charged with in Alaska was for shoplifting.

Vatuvei was booked at the Anchorage jail with bail set at $40,000, police said.

ADVERTISEMENT