Crime & Courts

Nome man charged with attempted murder after stabbing officer, police say

A 38-year-old Nome man faces an attempted murder charge after he stabbed a police officer in an apartment on Tuesday night, according to police.

The Nome police officer had gone to the apartment on East Third Avenue around 11 p.m. Tuesday in response to a complaint that Frank Johnson had assaulted a woman, said a complaint filed Wednesday in Nome District Court. Neighbors said they heard "a lot of yelling and commotion" coming from the apartment, the complaint said.

The officer knocked on the apartment door and the woman let him in, it said. Johnson was facing a living room window, "his hand obscured by a curtain," it said.

"Suspecting that the defendant was attempting to flee through the window, he was … instructed to place his hands behind his back," the complaint said. "Upon contact, the defendant turned wielding with a kitchen knife and stabbed Officer Johnson in the left side just under the armpit causing a laceration."

Nome District Attorney John Earthman said in an email that he had no reason to believe the officer and Frank Johnson were related. According to the complaint, Frank Johnson "struck Officer Johnson with the knife with enough force to penetrate the officer's uniform top, under shirt and bend the knife's blade from its handle."

Nome Chief of Police John Papasodora said in an email that the knife penetrated the officer's skin. "By divine intervention it was a superficial stab wound," he said.

Frank Johnson was charged with first-degree attempted murder, second- and third-degree assault and resisting or interfering arrest. He was in custody at the Anvil Mountain Correctional Center in Nome on Thursday.

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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