Black / African American male Tiwan Marquis Johnson Jr., 19, was shot just after 1 a.m. on January 24, 2017, in the parking lot of the Brown Jug liquor store at 171 Muldoon Road in East Anchorage. Police said multiple people were present during the confrontation; two men were hit by gunfire and rushed to the hospital, where the 19-year-old died a short time later while the second victim survived with a non-life-threatening shoulder wound.
Detectives publicly asked a driver in a pickup who passed through the lot as shots were fired to come forward, and they sought tips as they sorted out who among the small crowd were participants and who were bystanders.
Three days later, a 23-year-old acquaintance, Christopher Birotte, arrived at Anchorage Police Department headquarters with an attorney and surrendered on a warrant. Prosecutors charged him with second-degree murder for the killing and second-degree assault for the wounding of the other man. According to investigators and the arrest warrant, a fight near the store escalated into a struggle over a backpack believed to contain marijuana; a handgun was produced, shots were fired, and the 19-year-old was struck in the head. An officer said Birotte handed over a handgun but made no admissions when he turned himself in.
In court the following weekend, prosecutors said security-camera footage captured Birotte firing at a car occupied by four people as it drove away, killing the 19-year-old. The injured survivor was identified in contemporaneous reports as Eric Miller. A defense attorney argued that before the shooting Johnson and Miller had beaten Birotte and stolen his backpack in a planned attack, a claim the family disputed as they mourned the young man's death.
Family members described the 19-year-old as a cheerful, athletic recent East High School graduate who had moved to Alaska from California seeking a better life, not someone immersed in gangs or guns. Their grief played out against the wider backdrop of a city struggling through a violent stretch, but in this case police moved quickly to name and arrest a suspect.
