A 4-year-old girl was struck by bullet fragments in Anchorage's Russian Jack neighborhood after a gun was fired in an upstairs apartment, Anchorage police said Thursday.
Police spokeswoman Renee Oistad said that the incident, at an apartment on the 4300 block of San Roberto Avenue, was first reported to police by staff at a local hospital just after midnight Thursday.
"According to the parents, the child had been left in the care of their 17-year-old while they were at work," Oistad wrote. "When the parents returned home, they discovered their daughter had holes in her legs and her bed was bloody. The other three kids in the house were sleeping and unharmed."
The girl suffered non-life-threatening injuries, Oistad said. Her parents took her to a nearby hospital.
"Police were able to ascertain the child had been hit by bullet fragments, and that bullet had been fired from an apartment on the third floor directly above the apartment where the child lives," Oistad wrote.
Oistad said that only one bullet appeared to have been fired from the upstairs apartment. Investigators haven't found any signs of disputes between the residents of the upstairs and downstairs apartments.
Police spoke with "a resident of the third-floor apartment" and are still trying to determine the circumstances under which the round was fired, according to the statement. Oistad declined to say whether investigators believe they have spoken with the person who fired the weapon.
"We're still working on that," Oistad said.
No charges have currently been filed in the case, which remains under investigation.