Alaska News

Wanted felon taken into custody on Anchorage Hillside

A wanted felon who escaped into woods of the Anchorage Hillside for hours after allegedly firing a handgun in front of police officers was bitten by a police dog and arrested Sunday afternoon, Anchorage police reported.

The incident started at 4:44 a.m. Sunday, when police were called to a home on the 12000 block of Atherton Road, on the lower Hillside, for a reported theft and assault.

They found 25-year-old William Jarrett IV and his roommate had gotten into a fight, with Jarrett allegedly trying to grab the roommate's gun.

Police caught up with Jarrett nearby but he refused to stop and took the gun out of his backpack, a spokeswoman for the Anchorage Police Department reported. He was then seen firing a shot into the ground and running into a heavily wooded area, where police lost track of him.

Five hours later, emergency dispatchers received a call from a Bear Valley homeowner who said a stranger was standing in his driveway.

"The homeowner called out, 'what are you doing?' " said APD spokeswoman Renee Oistad. "The response the homeowner got did not appear to be overly rational."

The man in the driveway appeared to be Jarrett, Oistad said. He didn't threaten anyone.

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"He was simply not being compliant," Oistad said.

Around the time police arrived, Jarrett disappeared again into the thick woods. They were able to talk briefly with Jarrett by cellphone, but lost contact with him and he didn't answer further calls.

At 2:22 p.m., a canine unit and members of the SWAT team began searching for Jarrett in the mountainous, thickly forested hillside behind Bear Valley's residential roads.

They found him at 3:13 p.m., police said.

"Jarrett was located, bitten by the K9, and taken into custody," the dispatch said.

Jarrett, convicted of a felony in 2008, faces charges of third-degree assault, two counts of misconduct involving a weapon in the third degree and one count of theft in the second degree.

Michelle Theriault Boots

Michelle Theriault Boots is a longtime reporter for the Anchorage Daily News. She focuses on in-depth stories about the intersection of public policy and Alaskans' lives. Before joining the ADN in 2012, she worked at daily newspapers up and down the West Coast and earned a master's degree from the University of Oregon.

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