Updated: Anchorage police roll out new crime suppression plan

By
Suzanne Downing
-
6

Anchorage Police Chief Justin Doll announced a new crime suppression initiative today during a press conference at 11:30 am.

The new initiative will involve some restructuring of the police force with an emphasis on a unit that will work on violent crime suppression and more night patrol shifts as part of the package.

Before taking over as chief in June, Doll served as the head of the Crime Suppression Division.

Mayor Ethan Berkowitz campaigned for mayor by emphasizing public safety, but crime has spiked under his administration.

Reports of car thefts and home break-ins are now routine and crime in Anchorage has hit a critical point, residents say. One middle-aged Anchorage woman testifying last week at an Assembly work session remarked that she never goes out unarmed anymore because Anchorage isn’t the same city it was when she moved here.

During an April press conference, when he was being named chief, Doll said, “With another academy graduating in June, the department’s really poised to start doing great things. We’re looking forward to that: implementing innovative police strategies and really reaching out to the community, things like foot patrols and officers on bicycles.”

UPDATE:

At midday, the Anchorage Police Department issued details of its crime suppression strategy, which will be fully implemented in mid-October:

  1. The VICE team will move from the Detective Division, to the Crime Suppression Division. This moves CAP and VICE under one chain of command for drug investigations. Simplifying this structure means the units will work more closely together and be more effective.
  2. An APD detective assigned as liaison with the Alaska Information Analysis Center (AKIAC) will move to the Crime Suppression Division as a dedicated Task Force Officer. This detective will be housed with the APD crime analysis unit to add a layer of intelligence to data being explored. This intelligence sharing with our law enforcement partners will help APD determine trends, hot spots, and better connect suspects to crime. A detective will also be added to both the Homicide Unit and Robbery/Assault unit to assist with violent crime investigations.
  3. Finally, an Investigative Support Unit (ISU) is being created to assist detectives and patrol. This unit will consist of eight officers and a sergeant who are not tied to calls for service. This enables them to assist detectives serve search warrants, run surveillance, find witnesses, conduct long term investigations, provide targeted high intensity patrol enforcement, or react to major incidents.

“As we finally feel the impact of increased staffing, we assessed how to strategically deploy our resources to have the most impact on crime and take violent offenders off the street,” said Chieff Doll. “Our goal is to more proactively address crime, rather than simply react to it.”

6 COMMENTS

  1. One way we can dry up much of the crime in Anchorage is to cite all of the people on the street corner smoking pot. And after that, do a warrant check on them. I think we will find in no time much of the public nuisances will disperse once the word gets out, and all the attendant theft they bring. Guilinani did much of the same thing with the “squeegee men” of NYC. They thought it would cost a fortune to clean these guys out but guess what? The Squeegee Men just faded away and it was cheeper than what they had been doing.

    If the City had even more guts they would do warrant checks to get into Brother Francis or Beans Cafe. It can be so dangerous at these locations that medical staff cannot go without a police escort.

  2. The roots of the crime problem are to be found in society’s permissiveness and toleration of maybe too much stuff, an expanding social welfare state in which idleness is supported and even encouraged, and our politically-correct public dialogue. The marijuana smoker ignored by the police graduates to petty theft, small drug dealing and an act of domestic violence or two. That mutant moves up to the big stuff. Substitution of government handouts and free programs for real jobs is extremely corrosive over time. Most “progressives” think that all of this is just fine.

  3. That’s an interesting map. Where is that map from? What is the URL? I’d like to see it in context.

  4. Well arresting the guy that goes around finding people’s stolen cars is a good way to combat crime. ‘Let Floyd GO!’ arraignment of Anchorage’s newest unlikely folk hero: Floyd Hall, a soft-spoken, self-described “hippie biker rocker” who spends much of his free time finding other people’s stolen cars. Hall estimates he’s helped to find and recover 25 or more stolen vehicles. His crime was showing up the police that say they don’t have time to find stolen cars. Thats not the crime he was charged with but when Police can’t help the people, they will help themselves. Police are more concerned with vigilantism then crime. Look for more vigilantes.

  5. Steven- I agree with you on warrant checks. I no longer walk around town like I used to. People are in your face scary. We need to hold people accountable. Want a check, do a drug test, including for pot. When too much is given, we take away people’s ability to dream and the desire to be self-motivating. As for NYC though, they did not fade away. He put the low level criminals on buses and sent them upstate, where the crime continued. Many moved into the town my father lived in. The costs for law enforcement, state and local, skyrocketed in those towns. As someone who moved from NYC because of the crime in the 60’s, he could not believe when Giuliani did it. Prior to that, he liked the mayor. There is no magic cure. It has to be layers of action, accountability, rehab/counseling, decent paying jobs, ways to get back to home villages, and affordable housing. Rents are ridiculous for everyone in this town. The bottom for people is a lot lower than it used to be and to them, it justifies their behavior.

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