A 43-year-old employee of a Fairbanks bar was shot and killed in the parking lot early Wednesday morning, police said.
The shooting occurred outside the Midnite Mine at about 3:15 a.m., the Fairbanks Police Department said. Zachariah Hobbs, an employee of the bar, was declared dead by medics at the scene, they said.
Police arrested 21-year-old Derrick Dewayne McCormick Jr. on first-degree murder charges.
A judge on Thursday ordered McCormick held on a $2 million cash performance bond and a $1 million appearance bond, 10% of it cash.
McCormick had been involved in an incident at the bar late last year, court documents filed in the case said.
Another employee at the Midnite Mine during the shooting told police that Hobbs removed McCormick from the bar in November after he repeatedly touched her hand, according to a criminal complaint filed Thursday.
The woman said McCormick had threatened to come back with a gun and tried to sneak back in later that night, according to a probable cause statement filed with the murder charge by police Detective Robert Hall.
She said she got a threatening message a few days later and also saw McCormick working at a restaurant last weekend and left before eating because he was staring at her, the statement said. McCormick confronted her outside, “verbally accosted her” and started to follow her to her vehicle, Hall wrote.
The Midnite Mine was closed when the shooting took place, police said, and the employee and Hobbs were the only people there.
Surveillance video showed someone matching McCormick’s appearance waiting around the parking lot for about 45 minutes, “repeatedly going back” near the bartender’s vehicle, the detective’s statement said. Video also showed the shooter fleeing the scene, it said.
McCormick called 911 to report the shooting but provided false information about his name, date of birth, location, and the number he was calling from, it said.
Police said dispatchers used a program that allowed them to track the location of the caller and alerted patrol officers who found McCormick, the only person walking in that area.
McCormick remained lodged at Fairbanks Correctional Center as of Thursday evening.