For several years, Rich Curtner was one of the people in Anchorage pushing for the police department to have body cameras. He’s a retired attorney who works with the Alaska Black Caucus and the Alaska Coalition for Justice.
As the body camera process was ongoing, he said he went to the Assembly’s Public Safety Committee meetings to see what other conversations community members were having around police accountability.
“I didn't get anything out of it,” Curtner said. “It wasn't very active. And so I didn't… I went to a couple meetings, and then I just quit going.”
Anchorage used to have a more active public safety advisory commission, designed to give citizens an opportunity to weigh in on how the police and other public safety departments in the city operate.But that commission has been defunct for years, prompting the Assembly to reimagine what one could look like now.
“The commission hasn't felt like it has had a meaningful role,” Assembly member Kameron Perez-Verdia said. “And I think that's one of the things that we're looking for, so that people who serve on it, and then the public who look to this commission, know that this role is meaningful and actually has a stake in what's going on.”
The move comes amid a tenuous time for the police department. Officers started wearing body cameras at the end of 2023. Since then, the city has seen a string of police shootings, with officers shooting 13 people since last May. Eight people died as a result, including a 16-year-old girl, prompting widespread outrage and a call for a review of the police department’s policies.
Last month, Curtner and Assembly member Felix Rivera were named co-conveners of a task force aimed at restarting Anchorage’s public safety advisory commission. Rivera said the goal is to foster a better relationship between the community and the police.
“It's really supposed to explore, how does the public interact with public safety from a variety of perspectives,” Rivera said. “From sort of a data transparency perspective, but also, and you know sometimes people are afraid to say this word because it causes all kinds of different reactions, but also from an oversight perspective.”
Rivera said he understands that a call for oversight of the police department could be seen as a criticism of the police. But he said at their core, officers are public servants, and he wants the relationship between the public and the police to be closer.
“I think we can look at it as a way to really increase trust, build relationships, and that's what I'm hoping here in this process, that it does all of those things,” Rivera said. “What I don't want to have happen in this process is it really a divisive process where folks are sort of pointing the finger at each other.”
Curtner said another goal of the advisory commission is to increase transparency. He said he felt like the process to get body cameras on officers wasn’t very transparent, and he thinks the public deserves to know how the police are operating.
“I don't think that's a negative for anybody,” Curtner said. “You know, open transparency about what's going on, good and bad, would be good for the community. And that's where the community, I think, is really up in arms not knowing what's going on.”
Mayor Suzanne LaFrance expressed support for the revamping of the advisory commission at a press conference about public safety last month.
“I think it's really important for the administration and the Assembly to have access to the expertise and feedback and perspectives of citizens, and because we want to have full representation in our community,” she said.
Police Chief Sean Case has been hesitant to explicitly support the creation of a form of civilian oversight of the police, in the past expressing concern for how it would impact morale for the department as it works to recruit and retain its officers. At the same press conference, he said he felt it was a bit premature to weigh in.
“As we go through the process, not just what we want to get out of the commission moving forward or what we did not get out of the commission previously, it's what kind of, do we have legal access to,” Case said. “Do we want to look at policies and training and complaints that come and go, and not just with the police department, with some of our other departments, with some of the other public safety entities?”
Rivera said he and Curtner aim to bring a list of recommendations for the creation of the commission to the full Assembly in October.
“October is generally in the middle of budget season, and so it gives the Assembly a prime opportunity, if there are budgetary recommendations, for us to consider this,” Rivera said.
He said the plan is for the task force to have its first meeting in late June or early July.
