Special report: A first-of-its-kind investigation by the Anchorage Daily News and ProPublica found more than 70 Alaska communities — places with some of the highest rates of sexual assault in the U.S. — have no local police protection.
Kiana Village Police Officer Annie Reed, 49, is a grandmother and often the only cop in the Northwest Alaska village of 421 people. KIANA — Village Police Officer Annie Reed heard her VHF radio crackle to life in the spring of 2018 with the familiar voice of an elder. I need help at my house, the woman said.
Seventy of these unprotected villages are large enough to have both a school and a post office. Many are in regions with some of the highest rates ofin the United States. Most can be reached only by plane, boat, ATV or snowmachine. That means, unlike most anywhere else in the United States, emergency help is hours or even days away.
• In villages that do have police, more than 20 have hired officers with criminal records that violate state standards for village police officers over the past two years. They say that’s better than no police at all. Our review identified at least two registered sex offenders working this year as Alaska policemen.
The problem is getting worse. Our investigation found the number of police provided through the state Village Public Safety Officer Program is at or near an all-time low; the few who remain are often unhappy and overextended.When the lone VPSO in the northwest Arctic village of Ambler investigated a domestic violence call in April, for example, he said he was attacked by two people in the home who each grabbed one of his arms.
Whether each Alaskan also receives basic public safety protection — the ability to dial 911 and have a police officer or trooper show up at the door — depends largely on whether they live in cities like Anchorage and Fairbanks, or off the road system. Inside the city building, council members in Carhartts and snow pants held their monthly meeting. For 90 minutes they shared powdered doughnuts and talked about utility rates, until it was time for Annie Reed to give a public safety report.
Katelynn Reed, 22, with her son Abram Reed-Jordan, then 7 months, in her family's home. Behind is her father, Jack Reed. Katelynn's mother, Annie Reed, is often the town's only cop. While state law allows for communities to arm VPSOs and even city-hired village police officers like Reed, the director of the Alaska Police Standards Council said he is not aware of any employers that do so, partly because it could make insurance liability rates skyrocket for small communities.
From left, Amber Reed, Pauline Gooden and Clara Stein smoke outside the city office building in Kiana. Stein was taking a break from her job working at the city office. “I had a shotgun pulled on me. You know, I grabbed an ax,” Henry said. It was a messy family dispute between stepbrothers in January, with kids inside the home. Hours before a state trooper was able to get to the village, Reed arrived and took statements. Kotzebue prosecutors filed charges and Henry turned himself in a few days later, pleading guilty to fourth-degree assault. But he said Reed can’t possibly be impartial — the kids in the house were her grandchildren.
“Severe troublemakers are banished. We usually purchase them a ticket out of Igiugig and then ask airlines to put them on a no-fly list,” she said of the Alaska Peninsula community. “When I’m here by myself and somebody comes pounding on my door and wants to beat the living daylights out of me, it would have been nice to have a VPSO in that next office,” said Mary Willis, tribal president for the Kuskokwim River village of Stony River.after an employee sexually abused multiple girls, City Clerk Gerald Oxereok said the village hasn’t had any law enforcement for 20 years. On the shores of the Bering Strait, the whaling town is the westernmost city in mainland North America.
The man stabbed three people, including one who struck his arm with a piece of rebar to try to knock free the 8-inch knife, according to charges filed against him. The suspect also stabbed his sister in the stomach, but she was able to snatch the weapon away, according to the charges. Villagers held him in a cell until troopers arrived by plane more than two hours after the attack and school lockdown began.
“The idea that there are places in the United States, a first-world country, that do not have public safety ... a basic human right, was horrifying to me,” said Azara Mohammadi, a council employee who worked on the survey. Today, thousands of rural homes in 29 villages still lack running water and flush toilets, according to the state Village Safe Water Program. The road system reaches only about one out of every five communities.
A boarded-up window at a home in Kiana. Last year, according to charges filed in state court, a man broke through this window and raped a woman. The victim had to fly to Anchorage for testing, and it took three weeks before the suspect was arrested. During that time, he returned to the house multiple times asking if the family planned on pressing charges, according to troopers.
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