Barricaded person killed by Anchorage police as multiple hostages walk free from hotel SWAT standoff

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Anchorage, AK - The Office of Special Prosecutions cleared the Anchorage police officers who shot and killed a man who barricaded himself inside a midtown hotel in February after holding five hostages.

The officer-involved shooting on Feb. 21 involved 41-year-old Puipuia Lipoi Alaelua and Anchorage Police Officers Jordan Varak and Tomas Franjul, according to the OSP review.

“Officers Varak and Franjul were legally justified in their use of deadly force against Puipuia Alaelua,” the review stated.

The confrontation occurred in a second-floor room of the Hampton Inn hotel, according to a hotel guest, where responding APD officers spoke to a person of interest connected to a “suspicious” vehicle in the parking lot.

The OSP review said the vehicle Alaelua was in had recently eluded police, and when authorities confronted him, he “pointed a gun at police officers, barricaded himself in a hotel room, took a woman and her four children hostage, and shot at police officers through the hotel door.”

APD officers witnessed Alaelua “holding a woman in front of him as if she were a shield.” They also saw him pointing a gun at her, which is when the officers — Varak and Franjul — shot and killed him.

The five hostages — including at least one woman and several children, were safely removed.