ANCHORAGE — Anchorage police are investigating a shooting at a New Year’s Eve party that wounded two people, one critically.
Witnesses say a house was packed with people before they heard shots fired around 1 a.m. Friday. One person was taken to the hospital in critical condition and another who had been shot arrived at the hospital later for treatment.
Family members confirmed with the Alaska Dispatch News that the man in critical condition is 21-year-old Armando Ochoa. His mother and relatives were at the Alaska Native Medical Center Friday night, where they said Ochoa was in the critical care unit.
“He is strong,” said Ochoa’s girlfriend, Jazmin Carreon.
Late Friday morning, 21-year-old Kollin Madsen told the Alaska Dispatch News that his friend hosted the party and that he had no idea what started the shooting. He had returned that day to help clean up the house, where bloody rags, shards of glass and plastic cups could still be seen on the floor.
“It was quite a bit of gunfire,” Madsen said.
Neighbor Nyaboth Luak told KTUU-TV that her house was hit by bullets, with one shattering a lamp above her head. After investigators left, she said she found a slug in her bed upstairs. The former Sudan resident said children in the home, including her own and a nephew, ran downstairs after the shooting started.
“I never seen something like that here in the United States,” she told KTUU-TV.
A statement released Friday evening by the Anchorage Police Department says witnesses were being interviewed.
Neighbors say they saw a white or silver car driving away from the party as a passenger fired a gun.
No arrests have been made.
Anyone with information is asked to call authorities.
