In downtown Fairbanks on the afternoon of May 6, 2022, a 26-year-old Black male, named Rolando Khaleel Pressley crossed paths with a man who had gone out looking for him. Shortly after 2:25 p.m., shots rang out at First Avenue and Cushman Street. Court Services Officers near the courthouse heard the gunfire and rushed toward the intersection, where responders found Rolando Pressley on the sidewalk with multiple wounds.
Medics tried to save him and transported him to Fairbanks Memorial Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
Investigators quickly identified the shooter as 42-year-old Matthew Lee Myers, who remained at the scene and was taken into custody immediately. Detectives recovered a Glock 9mm pistol and counted eight spent casings on the ground. According to police statements summarized in contemporaneous coverage, Myers told officers he had watched Rolando Pressley start a dumpster fire near his residence earlier that day, armed himself, and went out to find him. When he confronted Pressley downtown, witnesses said the victim was unarmed; Myers admitted he fired multiple times “aiming center mass,” and continued shooting after Pressley fell. He was booked that weekend on a charge of first-degree murder.
In the months that followed, the case moved through Alaska's courts while the community marked the loss of Rolando Pressley, age 26, to gun violence. Official summaries of the incident fixed the location and time—First and Cushman, midafternoon—and noted that responders counted seven gunshot wounds on the victim, consistent with witness accounts of sustained fire.
A Fairbanks jury ultimately found Matthew Lee Myers guilty of murder in the second degree, along with related assault and weapons counts, concluding that his decision to arm himself, seek out the 26-year-old male, and open fire in the heart of downtown led directly to Pressley's death. State prosecutors later outlined the sentencing exposure associated with those convictions. The verdict closed the loop that began the moment Myers was detained at the scene on May 6, 2022, providing the formal answer to who killed Rolando Pressley and how swiftly the suspect was arrested.
