Man arrested in deadly bar shooting had said he’d ‘come back’ with gun, Alaska cops say
A man who threatened to “come back with a firearm” after being kicked out of a bar in Alaska has been arrested in the fatal shooting of the employee who removed him, police said.
Derrick Dewayne McCormick Jr., 21, was arrested on suspicion of first-degree murder after the shooting early Jan. 15 at a Fairbanks bar, the Fairbanks Police Department said in a post on Facebook.
McCormick made a first appearance in court Jan. 16, police said.
McClatchy News reached out to his attorney Jan. 17 and was awaiting a response.
Police found bar employee Zachariah Hobbs, 43, fatally shot in the parking lot after someone called 911 at about 3:15 a.m. Jan. 15 to report that they heard gunshots and “someone was on the ground,” police said.
It turned out McCormick was the caller, and the dispatcher grew suspicious after he gave “false information” and made “conflicting statements” during the roughly 19-minute call, according to police.
The dispatcher helped police find McCormick, “who was multiple blocks away from where he claimed to be,” police said.
A female employee at the bar saw someone running away after the shooting, police said. She recognized McCormick in a lineup, saying she couldn’t be sure he was the one running away, but he’d been kicked out of the bar in late November after he “kept touching her hand,” police said.
Hobbs had been the one to remove him, according to police.
McCormick had threatened to return with a gun and “he also attempted to sneak back in that same night,” police said.
The female employee said she’d also seen McCormick on Jan. 11 when she went to “a restaurant where he turned out to be a cook,” police said. He stared at her, “and she ended up canceling her order and leaving the restaurant,” police said.
He followed her and “was verbally accosting her” outside, police said.
In video footage at the bar Jan. 15, someone who matched McCormick’s description is seen “standing in and around the parking lot” from about 2:30 a.m. “until the time of the shooting,” police said.
The person “is observed moving around the lot and repeatedly going near the female employee’s vehicle,” according to police.
Video footage also captured “an altercation between the person matching McCormick’s description and the victim before he shot the victim and ran from the parking lot,” police said.
Investigators tracked McCormick’s footprints from the bar parking lot to the spot where police found him, and a search of his home uncovered ammo and an invoice for a gun purchased Dec. 23, according to police.
There was no gun in the home, “and the firearm used in the shooting has not been located,” police said.
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