Hispanic/Latino male Jesus Isauro Oropeza, 17, stepped outside his Government Hill home in Anchorage just after midnight on January 21, 2017, answering a call from boys he knew. A surveillance camera in the neighborhood recorded what followed: two young men confronted the 17-year-old in the street, forced him to the ground, rifled through his clothing, and then shot him in the back as he lay on his stomach.
He died there in the cold dark, a teenager whose winter night had begun with a phone call and ended in an execution-style killing.
Within days, investigators publicly named two 18-year-old suspects: Sean Robert Samuel Simeonoff and Kenya Damien Jacob Berezkin. Police had already taken Simeonoff into custody on Tuesday evening, January 24, and issued bulletins seeking Berezkin. A witness—who told detectives she'd driven the pair and two others to the intersection of Birch and Vine Streets and waited—came forward after learning what had happened. Working with police, she placed a monitored call to Berezkin; on the line, he urged her to delete text messages and deny she had given them a ride that night.
By January 27, officers had located and arrested Berezkin. Both he and Simeonoff were arraigned on charges including Murder in the First Degree, Murder in the Second Degree, and Robbery in the First Degree. A judge set bail at $500,000 for each, and court records listed early hearings—Berezkin for a pre-indictment session on January 31 and Simeonoff for a Rule Five hearing on February 6—as the case moved from the street and the security camera's eye into the courtroom.
In the days after the shooting, family notices named the 17-year-old victim and marked the abrupt end of a young life rooted in Anchorage. Memorial pages and obituaries fixed the date—January 21, 2017—and age—17—placing his name among the lives cut short by gunfire that winter.
