Anchorage police were at the Spenard Road McDonald's early Thursday investigating a stabbing at a nearby motel. Then a man they were looking for in a different matter pulled into the drive-thru.
"The officers were like, 'That's the vehicle that's been eluding us all night,' " said MJ Thim, Anchorage police spokesman.
He drove into a parking lot where there were multiple officers and police vehicles with flashing lights, Thim said.
Police arrested the man in the red Chevrolet Blazer, just as they also arrested a man suspected in the stabbing.
The trouble for the driver, identified by police as Curtis Commack, started at 2:48 a.m. in East Anchorage. Officers tried to pull over the Blazer in the 6200 block of Boundary Avenue for driving without his headlights on. But the driver didn't stop, police said.
Patrol officers spotted him at various times during the night but couldn't get him to pull over, Thim said. Because the driver wasn't determined to be an immediate threat, they didn't turn it into a pursuit, he said.
Meanwhile, at Executive Suites on Spenard Road, a drinking party turned bloody, police said. One man stabbed another multiple times, then dashed off, according to police. Police were alerted just before 4 a.m. The victim, whose injuries were not life-threatening, was taken to a hospital.
Officers found the suspect at McDonald's.
Alex Bender, 27, now faces multiple charges including first-degree assault.
And at 5:39 a.m., officers spotted Commack at McDonald's too. They arrested him just after he got his food at the drive-thru. Commack, 35, is charged with eluding police.