Man arrested after deadly snowmobile ‘attacks’ on dog teams in Alaska’s Iditarod

A 26-year-old man has been taken into custody on suspicion of crashing his snowmobile into two Iditarod mushers early on Saturday morning.

Alaska State Troopers say Arnold Demoski of Nulato is being held on two counts of assault, reckless endangerment reckless driving and six counts of criminal mischief.

Demoski told the Alaska Dispatch News that he had not intentionally driven into the dog teams, but had blacked out after drinking in another village.

The arrest came after two veteran mushers in Alaska’s Iditarod told race officials on Saturday that a person on a snowmobile tried to drive the machine into their sled teams in apparent attacks that resulted in the death of one dog and injuries to three others.

The incidents occurred about 19km from the Nulato checkpoint, about 936 km into this year’s 1,570-km course, according to a statement posted on the race website.

A dog belonging to four-time champion Jeff King was killed when his team was hit from behind by a snowmobile, and two of his other dogs were injured, race officials said.

“It did not seem like an accident,” King said, adding that the driver never stopped or returned to the scene. “It felt like an intentional attempt to scare me.”