Tripp J Crouse, KTOO

Update | 3:35 p.m.

What allegedly began as a late night handgun sale ended with a 19-year-old suffering a gunshot wound in downtown Juneau.

According to a Juneau Police Department news release, the 19-year-old was at the Wharf building on Monday night to meet a 22-year-old man to buy a handgun.

The two men, whom police did not name, were examining the loaded weapon when it went off, the statement said.

At about 11:18 p.m., a 911 caller reported a “bang” and a man lying on the floor screaming. Officers found the man in significant pain with a gunshot wound to his leg.

“The bullet wound was in the right thigh of the 19-year-old,” Juneau police spokesman Lt. David Campbell said. “It was right in meaty part of the thigh. (It was) a fairly significant bullet wound. It wasn’t like a grazing shot or anything like that.”

The victim was treated on the scene by Capital City Fire/Rescue and taken to Bartlett Regional Hospital.

Campbell had read the police report, but it was in a draft format, so not all details were immediately available.

Police interviewed everyone involved and located the handgun, but the details about the firearm were limited.

“We are not releasing the type of gun  at this point in time just because we are dealing with recommendations from the district attorney’s office,” Campbell said. “The only thing we can say is it was a semi-automatic handgun.”

If the department arrests them or files charges, the department would release their names.

“Saying what charges are going to apply and how we’re going to go forward at this point in time it’s too premature to say, but there are several that just on the surface look like they would apply in this case,” Campbell said.

Those charges include potential weapons misconduct, assault and reckless endangerment. Campbell said it’s up to the officer, the detective and the district attorney to determine what charges apply.

He also said the incident could have been prevented had both parties observed basic handgun safety protocol.

“There are handgun safety rules that if they would have been followed, this situation could have been avoided,” Campbell said. “And I don’t know what kind of training these two men might have had in handling firearms, but standard safety practices would definitely have avoided this situation.”

Police believe alcohol was a factor, but Campbell couldn’t say whether that meant the victim, the 22-year-old or both.

No other injuries were reported and the investigation is ongoing.

Original story | 11: 16 a.m.

What allegedly began as a late night handgun sale ended with a 19-year-old suffering a gunshot wound in downtown Juneau.

According to a Juneau Police Department news release, the 19-year-old was at the Wharf Building on Monday night to meet another man to buy a handgun.

The two men, whom police did not identify, were examining the loaded weapon when it went off, the statement said.

At about 11:18 p.m., a 911 caller reported a “bang” and a man lying on the floor screaming. Police officers found the man in significant pain with an apparent gunshot wound to his leg. He was treated on the scene by Capital City Fire/Rescue and taken to Bartlett Regional Hospital.

No other injuries were reported. Police believe alcohol was a factor. The investigation is ongoing.

The House Intelligence Committee investigation will hold its first public hearing on Monday over accusations of Russian meddling in the 2016 election.

Live special coverage from NPR begins at 6 a.m. Alaska time and is expected to go until to 9 a.m. You can listen to coverage here and on KTOO over the air.

FBI Director James Comey is expected to be asked to weigh in on the President Donald Trump’s claim that the Obama administration wiretapped Trump Tower.

Comey and National Security Agency director Admiral Mike Rogers, are expected to testify before the House Intelligence Committee.

You can follow NPR’s Two-Way live blog here, which will include streaming video of the proceedings, with highlights, context and analysis from NPR reporters and correspondents.

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Welcome to Curious Juneau, starring you and your questions. Every episode we’ll help you find an answer to your question. This episode we look into the street art mural on the JACC. You can listen to the full podcast here:

I see her sometimes in the morning while I’m walking to work. My commute-by-foot brings me down the steps along Fireweed Place, past Bullwinkle’s Pizza, and by Centennial Hall. And, then, I see her.

We lock eyes for a moment. She’s a 16-foot-tall mural next to the JACC’s entrance.

“Our Lady of Perpetual Evolution.”

In her current state, the mural is a portrait of a young woman wearing a black top. She has multi-color hair, and a detailed neckline that features triangles and small red circles. The words “Our Lady of Perpetual Evolution” are scrawled in a turquoise street tag across her right shoulder, with the word “perpetual” spilling over her flesh-toned chest. Most striking are the streaks of primary colors under her eyes, and her full red lips.

It caught Megan Ahleman’s eye, too. She was leaving Centennial Hall after an event when she saw it. (Megan Ahleman is married to a 360 North employee and occasionally works for us on television productions.)

“It looked like it was in the early phases, but it looked like there was a face coming to fruition,” she told Curious Juneau.

Anchorage artist Will Kozloff was chosen by the Alaska State Council of the Arts and the Alaska Humanities Forum to do the set pieces for the Governor’s Awards for the Arts in January.

Kozloff said the wall was the product of having idle time.

“I’m looking at my schedule and I found one weird, spare day in my schedule for the time I was in Juneau,” Kozloff said. “I was asking around for a wall to paint. … Nancy from the JACC, said, ‘We have a wall!'”

So the 31-year-old began work on the mural that caught Ahleman’s eye.

Kozloff doesn’t usually sketch his work out before hand. Sometimes, like in this case, he uses pictures of friends as a creative jumping off point.

“For this one though, I drew up a general idea of what I was going to be doing, and then just kind of like diverted a little bit from there, but still kind of stuck with where I was going.

Kozloff wasn’t prepared for the elements when he began painting in Juneau, he said.

“This is my first time actually being in Juneau before, so I enjoy you guys’ warm weather but I was not prepared for the dampness that is just everything. … So I was like ‘OK this might take longer than just one day.'”

Kozloff is able to travel with his spray paint caps, but he isn’t able to fly with aerosol cans. He has to buy his paint locally.

“The paints – there’s a difference between paint in Juneau, and paint in Anchorage, and paint in the Lower 48,” he said. “Lower 48, it’s all fancy, laser beam paint, you know, that … it handles, like, the pigments even out by themselves. In Anchorage we have decent paint, not perfect.”

“Going to Juneau, it was just me hitting up Fred Meyer and just scooping up a bunch of $3 and $4 cans and going out and doing two or three layers to get the color and opacity that I was aiming for.”

He has spent eight years working on his art.

Kozloff has made his living off his painting for the last eight months. Graffiti is his primary medium.

“It’s the only one I know: I can’t draw, I can’t paint,” he said. “It’s partially ’cause I have some red-green color blind issues so a lot of the things like mixing colors just doesn’t work out for me.” 

“Mostly with spray paint it’s all single color, so you’re working with a limited palette and the name of the color is usually on it,” Kozloff said. “There’s a couple of blacks that look blue to me, or whatever. So, I’m just trusting the can.”

But sometimes, particularly when he’s closer to home, Kozloff has some help.

“My 3-year-old, he’s not color blind so I’d have him, and he rolls with me for almost all my gigs, except for the Juneau one: He’s my color guy,” Kozloff said. “I’m like, ‘Is this yellow or is this brown?’ So I let him take care of all the color differentiation.”

Kozloff says he plans to spend about a week in Juneau sometime after April to finish the JACC piece, and possibly work on some other walls as well.

“I actually have to go back and finish it up and maybe expand a bit, because for some reason I thought I could get a 16-foot painting done in one day,” he said

See photos from the Kozloff’s workshop:

Juneau police arrested a burglary suspect Tuesday after getting a call for a suspicious person in Mendenhall Valley, according to a department news release.

Brandon L. Bowhay, 36, of Juneau was arrested on three felony charges including burglary and theft.

Shortly after noon, Juneau police said someone reported a suspicious man walking out of a residence in the 9900 block of Stephen Richards Memorial Drive. The caller did not recognize the person, later identified as Bowhay, and said the homeowner wasn’t there.

The suspect was seen walking out of the residence with backpacks and a duffel bag. He was wearing a hood pulled up and something covering his mouth.

Police contacted the subject near a trailer park and identified him. Another officer responded to the residence and reported a back door had been forced open. Shoe prints were found in the area.

The door frame and lock were broken. Damage was assessed at about $1,000. Several items were missing including a shotgun, a rifle, two handguns and a pool stick.

Bowhay is being held at Lemon Creek Correctional Center.

An investigation is ongoing.

A 36-year-old Juneau man is in custody after police responded to a report of burglary in Mendenhall Valley on Tuesday, according to a Juneau Police Department news release.

Jeremiah M. Houston was arrested on two counts of first-degree burglary, second-degree theft and fourth-degree criminal mischief.

Juneau police responded to an intrusion alarm on Columbia Boulevard. An officer found a back door at a residence had been kicked in, but the homeowner said nothing appeared to be missing.

According to the news release, a “suspicious subject” was seen carrying a duffel bag about 2:45 p.m. in the area of View Drive near the Back Loop of Mendenhall Loop Road.

A responding police office located footprints leading from a residence in the 9300 block of Mendenhall Loop Road, where a door had been pried open.  Other officers found a man in the woods who matched the description of the suspect, later identified as Houston.

According to the release, Houston had property valued at $2,300 from the residence.

Houston is in Lemon Creek Correctional Center. An investigation is ongoing.

President Donald Trump will address a joint session of U.S. Congress at 5 p.m. Tuesday. Trump will address the House and Senate, members his Cabinet and the Supreme Court.

You can listen to coverage here on KTOO and over the air.

The address comes a day after Trump gave an outline of his budget plan for Congress, which would increase defense spending and make cuts to domestic programs. Following tradition, House Speaker Paul Ryan invited the president to make the speech to lay out his agenda in the early days of his new administration. You can come back to this post for NPR’s live transcript of the remarks with NPR journalists’ analysis and annotations.

Shortly after the president concludes, Former Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear will deliver the Democratic Response to President Trump’s address. Beshear was chosen by Democratic Party leaders for his record expanding affordable health care. We’ll also have NPR’s transcript of Beshear’s remarks with the NPR newsroom’s annotations.

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