Police seek suspect in burglary and assault that drew large police response in Fairview neighborhood

Update 7:30 a.m. Tuesday: Anchorage police were searching for 38-year-old Jack L. Espinoza Jr., who is facing charges of burglary, assault and criminal mischief in connection with an incident Monday in the Fairview neighborhood that drew a large police response.

Police said Espinoza around 11 a.m. went to an apartment on the 400 block of East 13th Avenue where his girlfriend had been staying and broke a window when the tenant refused to let him in. He threatened the tenant with a handgun once he was inside, police said in an updated online statement.

It was unclear when police arrived if Espinoza was still inside the building. Once officers determined he was no longer there, other efforts to find him were unsuccessful.

Police are asking anyone with information about Espinoza to call 311 or contact Crime Stoppers at 561-STOP or anchoragecrimestoppers.com. He is described as about 5-foot-10, 145 pounds, with brown eyes and a shaved, tattooed head.

Original story:

A “disturbance with a weapon” drew a large police response to the Fairview neighborhood Monday afternoon, Anchorage police said in an online statement.

Officers were called to the 400 block of East 13th Avenue at 11:13 a.m., the statement said, but the suspect had already left the area. No injuries were reported, and no arrests had been made.

Kaylyn Pass, who lives in an apartment on that block, said she woke up around 11 a.m to the sound of glass breaking. She went to back to bed, thinking it must have been a nightmare, but about an hour later she received several phone calls from police.

Pass said she was asked to gather her belongings and evacuate because police believed someone in the unit below her had a deadly weapon.

“When they told me what happened that’s when my heart just started racing because one of those people could have come up to our door easily and if we would have opened it we would have never known if they had a weapon or not,” she said.

Pass said she and others from the building waited down the street while police investigated.

“It’s crazy to think that it happened,” she said. “It’s a scary feeling.”

Police had closed 13th Avenue for a time but it was reopened before 1:30 p.m.