Advocates in Anchorage are gathering signatures for their proposed ballot measure to establish an inspector general for the city.
Michael Patterson is an organizer with the Party for Socialism and Liberation Anchorage, the group that started the petition. He said the goal is to provide more accountability and oversight of the Anchorage Police Department.
“What we're trying to do with this petition is that we are trying to create an apparatus, or a mechanism for the public that if APD does something and you want to make a complaint, it's not to APD, it's not to the state of Alaska,” Patterson said. “It is to an independent entity.”
The Anchorage Assembly would appoint the inspector general, and the powers, duties and terms of office would come from a city ordinance.
The petition comes after a recent string of police shootings. Since Mayor Suzanne LaFrance took office last July, there have been nine police shootings that left five people, including a teenage girl, dead.
Currently, police shootings are investigated internally by APD, and then those investigations are reviewed by the state Office of Special Prosecutions. Since 2009, when the state began investigating police shootings, zero officers have been charged with a crime in connection to the more than 150 shootings statewide.
Patterson said he’s sure that sometimes those shootings are justified, but he thinks a lack of transparency within the police department makes it hard for the community to know for certain.
“Fundamentally, this is about democracy,” Patterson said. “This is about accountability, and it's about transparency with government officials that can kill you or can seriously injure you. And if any government official should have any oversight or scrutiny of what they do, it should be the police.”
Organizers need to get 7,225 signatures by Oct. 6 to get their issue on the spring city ballot, though Patterson hopes the total will be closer to 10,000.
LaFrance hasn’t publicly weighed in on the prospect of an inspector general for the city. When asked about it in an interview this month, she expressed support for more community input in advising the police department, but said she wouldn’t want any sort of community advisory board to have subpoena power.
