Initial reports of a shooting in Chevak is being reported by the trooper dispatch this morning.

According to troopers, at 8:15 pm on Wednesday night, they received a report that 24-year-old Harold Paniyak, pulled a weapon and shot the Village Police Officer, 40-year-old Derrick McDonald, in that community.

Troopers say that the VPO was medevaced to Anchorage for treatment of life-threatening injuries. 

After shooting the officer, Paniyak turned the weapon on himself, taking his own life. Paniyak was with his family when he died.

Bethel-based Troopers and the Alaska Bureau of Investigation responded to the community to initiate an investigation into the incident.

Very few details of the shootings have been released thus far as the investigation continues.

Chevak is a Cup’ik village with a population of approximately 930, eight miles from the the coast of the Bering Sea in southwest Alaska. The village is 17 miles east of Hooper Bay.[xyz-ihs snippet=”Adsense-responsive”]

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