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Anchorage police say a 25-year-old local man was arrested on a laundry list of charges Friday morning, after an attempt to escape a traffic stop that saw him nearly run over an officer, crash into several other vehicles and walk through a Midtown elementary school.
Michael Roddy Jovanov faces two counts of fourth-degree assault, as well as one count each of third-degree assault, failure to stop, leaving the scene of an accident, driving with a revoked license, reckless endangerment, resisting arrest and providing false information. In addition, Jovanov had existing arrest warrants for escape, failure to appear and third-degree misconduct involving a controlled substance.
According to APD spokesperson Anita Shell, the wild chase began at about 7 a.m. when Jovanov’s SUV didn’t stop for a traffic-control device in the vicinity of LaTouche Street and Northern Lights Boulevard.
“The officer made contact with the driver and asked him to step out of the vehicle,” Shell wrote in a Friday statement on the case. “The driver appeared very impaired and refused to identify himself. At some point during the traffic stop, the suspect jumped back into his vehicle; the officer reached for the man as he accelerated at a high rate of speed, injuring the officer’s arm and almost pulling him under the vehicle as he fled.”
Heading west along Northern Lights, Jovanov allegedly hit two vehicles stopped for a red light at its intersection with the Seward Highway, although he wasn’t immediately pursued by APD officers.
During the initial response to the incident, Shell says an APD K-9 unit dispatched to the area had its lights and siren activated when it collided with a People Mover bus at the intersection of A Street and Benson Boulevard. The bus suffered minor damage to its exit door and wheel well, with no injuries reported in the crash.
Police picked up the trail again after roughly 20 minutes, when the SUV was found empty near the west side of the Stevens Park Apartments on LaTouche Street. A search of the area soon led responding officers to a nearby school.
“Officers observed a man matching the description of the suspect walk into Rogers Park Elementary School where it was an in-service day for students and open to staff only,” Shell wrote. “The subject ran northbound from the school and crawled on his hands and knees across the pedestrian overpass (headed north across Northern Lights), then slid on his stomach down the stairs to the Rogers Park Subdivision.”
Another APD officer drove the K-9 unit from the A Street crash to the scene, where SWAT officers already on duty had started a new search of the adjoining neighborhood. Shell says Jovanov was eventually tracked down to a yard on the 1500 block of East 27th Avenue, where he was hiding behind a stack of tires.
“The subject failed to comply with (officers’) commands to surrender,” Shell wrote. “Tires began to fall from the stack as the suspect began to move. The K-9 apprehended the suspect who was then taken into custody without further incident.”
Jovanov’s bail has been set at $30,000, with a court-approved third-party custodian required for release.
Contact Chris Klint