Anchorage police report that they captured, after a brief encounter and footchase in East Anchorage’s Northway Mall parking lot, the suspect responsible for a stolen vehicle reported on Monday and a stolen handgun from another vehicle on Tuesday morning.

On Tuesday evening, a patrol officer spotted the stolen GMC Sierra that was taken from the 900-block of West 77th Avenue near North Flower and Parsons Avenue and worked to get turned around to give chase. As he was doing so, he lost sight of the vehicle. But, other officers responding to the area spotted the vehicle as it pulled in and parked near the McDonalds in the Northway Mall parking lot.

The responding officers worked to set up a block but the suspect, later identified as 29-year-old Alexander M. Perue, spotted the two patrol vehicles moving towards his and managed to evade the block and attempted to leave the parking lot as two additional patrol officers were entering the parking lot. Perue struck those vehicles before they successfully pinned him in.

Now immobile, Perue saw he was stuck, so exited the vehicle and fled on foot. As he was fleeing, Peerue discarded the stolen handgun before being taken down on the north end of the parking lot by several officers.

Officers found, as they processing the vehicle, that the ignition had been stripped during the theft. The handgun was recovered and found to be the one stolen earlier that day.

“Perue was remanded at the Anchorage Jail on the charges of Vehicle Theft I, Theft II – Larceny, Theft II – Firearms, Misconduct Involving a Weapon III – Felon in Possession, Resisting, and two counts of Assault III,” APD reports.

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