Two people were killed, two others were seriously injured and a 16-year-old boy was taken into custody after a shooting Monday at a home in a remote Inupiat whaling village on Alaska’s northwest coast, the Anchorage Daily News reported.
Details have been slow to emerge about Sunday’s mass shooting in Point Hope, which shocked the small community and prompted the closure of local schools on Monday.
Citing court documents, the newspaper reported that the teenage suspect was charged with two counts of first-degree murder and two counts of attempted first-degree murder. State law allows minors age 16 and older to be tried in adult court for murder.
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The newspaper’s reporting is based on a summary of the police report included in charging documents filed in court on Monday.
According to the newspaper, North Slope Borough Police Department officers responded to the home just after 11:30 p.m. Sunday and found a man and a woman dead and two men injured. All four people appear to have been shot.
According to the newspaper, a witness told police he saw the boy enter the house and begin firing shots. Other witnesses said they saw the boy leave with a handgun.
July 27, 2010, Village of Point Hope, Alaska. (Andy Cross/Denver Post via Getty Images)
According to the paper, the boy turned himself in at a local police station at around 11:45 pm on Sunday, accompanied by his father.
Officials said there was no ongoing risk to the community but did not provide details about what happened. Phones at both the village and tribal offices in Point Hope went unanswered Monday.
Tikigaku Corp. board chairman Sayers Tuzroiluk Sr. and North Slope Borough spokeswoman Alaina Danner also declined to discuss the shooting.
“In the coming days, we will come together as a community to heal and support each other,” the North Slope District said in a statement posted on social media.
Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy said he and his wife, Rose, were devastated by the “tragic mass shooting.”
“My heart breaks for the families and residents affected by this foolish act,” he said on Facebook, adding, “I will continue to pray for healing and justice.”
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Point Hope, with a population of about 675, is built on a triangular sandbar surrounded by a large inlet and the Chukchi Sea and the Arctic Ocean. It is located approximately 1,100 miles northwest of Anchorage.
The peninsula where Point Hope is located is one of the longest continuously inhabited areas in North America, with some of its earliest inhabitants crossing the Siberian land bridge to hunt arctic whaling about 2,000 years ago, the borough’s website says. It is described in.
Russia is approximately 320 miles west of Point Hope, across the Chukchi Sea.
