Cities add to patrol muscle
By Andrew Wellner
Frontiersman
Published on Thursday, February 5, 2009 11:29 PM AKST
MAT-SU — The Alaska State Troopers’ Bureau of Highway Patrol will be getting some help next month.
The bureau was formed in December out of two existing units, which, until then, had been focused on arresting drunk drivers. Four DUI Enforcement officers in Fairbanks and four in Palmer were the first to be brought under the aegis of the newly formed bureau.
Now the Wasilla and Palmer police departments are each kicking in an officer of their own.
From Palmer, officer Pete Steen will be assigned to the unit. From Wasilla, officer Bill Rapson will join.
The bureau’s commander, Capt. Hans Brinke says there are plans to start a third team on the Kenai Peninsula and they’re looking to see what other municipalities — Fairbanks, Soldotna, etc. — might be interested in a relationship similar to Wasilla’s and Palmer’s.
“We’re not necessarily limiting ourselves to what you would do on the road,” he said of the bureau. “More citizens come in contact with law enforcement on a traffic stop than on anything else you do.”
That means there are opportunities, he said, both to build relationships with the public and to come into contact with the criminal element who might otherwise fly under law enforcement’s radar.
Trooper Spokeswoman Megan Peters said the unit will function almost like an investigative team. When an accident is reported, the highway patrol will take over for the first-responding officer, freeing that officer up to respond to other calls.
Aside from freeing up police, though, the unit will bring expertise to accident investigation and other traffic patrol work, Peters said.
“The ultimate goal has been to bring the number of fatalities on the highway down,” Peters said. Toward that, she said, troopers are “providing a specific group of people that are trained so they can do the job as best as possible.”
Palmer’s Director of Public Safety Jon Owen said he’s excited at the chance to contribute to traffic enforcement in the Valley.
“Traffic safety is one of the most important functions of all law enforcement because, normally, more deaths occur on the highway than through homicides,” Owen said.
Wasilla Police Chief Angella Long was similarly excited.
“Collision investigation can get really complicated,” she said, and it will be helpful to have experts on hand to run the show.
She said the bureau has even said that her department can put in requests for targeted patrols of areas where officers notice a problem.
“That’s what traffic safety is all about,” Long said.
Brinke said targeting trouble spots is one of the things he’d like to focus on. Unlike a lot of police work, traffic enforcement can benefit hugely from watching the data. If one spot seems to have a lot of car accidents at a certain time, sending the unit there might bring those numbers down.
“We can try and predict where collisions are going to be,” Brinke said.
Palmer Police Commander Tom Remaley hopes the program will show results Valley-wide.
“Our injury and fatality accidents are not going down like we would like them to,” Remaley said. “Part of it is a roadway problem and the engineers are working on that.”
But with older roads and more motorists, there’s a need for a specialized unit like the Highway Patrol, Remaley said.
The idea of placing a municipal cop in a trooper unit is not a new one in the Valley. The Mat-Su Narcotic Unit includes a drug investigator from Wasilla and one from Palmer.
Owen said that between 75 and 80 percent of the funding for the municipal drug investigators comes from the state, with the city picking up the rest of the bill.
For the Highway Patrol, though, it’s a fully funded position for at least the first five years. The officer, his car, his desk — all will be paid for by the troopers with federal money.
“For the local municipalities this is an even better deal,” Owen said.
And putting an officer with the unit won’t leave the departments an officer short. Both departments will be filling in behind the officer assigned to the troopers, something Palmer, at least, hasn’t done for quite some time.
“As you may or may not know, we haven’t had an opening for a police officer in Palmer for three and a half years,” Owen said.
Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270
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