On January 24, 2021, in the early evening darkness of Anchorage's winter, a shooting drew officers to an apartment complex along the 4300 block of Thompson Avenue. Dispatch logged the call at 6:49 p.m., and responding units found two adult male victims inside. Both were rushed to the hospital; one man's wounds were immediately described as life-threatening while the other was expected to survive.
Hours later that night, police announced that the gravely injured victim had died, and the case shifted into a homicide investigation. Two days after the killing, authorities identified the deceased as Alaskan Native, 26-year-old June Tunu, male, with next-of-kin notified. The scene itself—an ordinary apartment corridor on Thompson Avenue—became the boundary between routine and irrevocable loss, as detectives began piecing together who had been present and what had unfolded before the gunfire.
Investigators emphasized that the circumstances surrounding the shooting were still being examined, but noted early on that they believed it to be an isolated event, not a threat to the broader public. As part of the initial canvass, detectives asked anyone in the area with surveillance footage or information to come forward, flagging the request through official channels and linking it to APD Case 21-2637. Even as the apartment complex returned to quiet, the timeline remained under reconstruction: two adult males struck by gunfire, one surviving, and 26-year-old June Tunu, pronounced dead, his name released after family notification.
In the weeks that followed, memorial pages recorded the death of 26-year-old June Tunu, male, noting the date and city—January 24, 2021, Anchorage—while community posts preserved the basic contours of what happened without expanding on motive or a dispute.
Authorities did not announce any arrests connected to the homicide of 26-year-old June Tunu, male, in the immediate aftermath. The initial notices explicitly said detectives were still determining who was involved and what the circumstances were, and subsequent public summaries continue to list the case among Anchorage homicides from that period without naming a suspect or detailing charges tied to the killing. As the investigation continued, the most consistent public message remained the call for witnesses and video—an open door for the piece of evidence that could identify a suspect or suspects and carry the case from unanswered questions to an arrest.
