The Anchorage Police Department recently launched two new initiatives aimed at reducing crime in the city.
At a news conference Thursday, the mayor and police chief laid out the projects: new cameras at Town Square Park and new technology to help catch people stealing from stores.
Mayor Suzanne LaFrance said public safety has always been her top priority. She called the city’s downtown the “shared living room” of Anchorage and said the goal is to make the area safer.
“I want our downtown bustling,” she said. “We have so many events to look forward to in the next six weeks, but I know we need to work harder to make downtown safe for everyone.”
To support that effort, she said the city installed nine cameras at Town Square Park, which have been active since Nov. 7. LaFrance referred to the downtown park as a “hotspot.” It's common for homeless people to loiter there.
Anchorage Police Chief Sean Case said the idea is to use cameras to make public spaces like the park more usable. He said the department will mostly use the cameras to target higher-level crime.
“We're not going to be using cameras for things like jaywalking,” he said. “But there are certain nuisance-level crimes that impact businesses, that impact people that are using our parks and our public spaces.”
He said those nuisance-level crimes include things like yelling or creating other loud disturbances, or challenging someone to fight.
He said the cameras will allow for both monitoring in real time and evidence collection after the fact, increasing the likelihood that APD will be able to prosecute crimes.
Case said the Town Square Park cameras are a pilot program. Next, the department is looking at Peratrovich Park, just to the north off 4th Avenue. There’s also interest in putting cameras on some trails, although Case said logistics make that a longer-term project.
Case acknowledged that the cameras might bring up privacy concerns. He said the location of cameras will always be public information.
The second public safety initiative is an anti-theft program at retail stores.
Many Anchorage retailers already share shoplifting information with each other through a private platform called Auror. Now APD is using the platform to connect with retailers, too.
“They can transmit their reports, their photos, any of the evidence that they have, directly through us, and that will allow a detective to take that case,” he said.
Previously, officers had to respond to the scene in order to enforce retail theft. Case said that required a lot of patrol officers and took more time.
The initiative has been in place since late September, and since then, APD has arrested more than 60 people and recovered more than $58,000 worth of merchandise, according to Case.
He said it’s also become clear that a focus on retail theft impacts policing of high level crimes. He said on one day in October, shoplifting arrests led to drug seizures, arrests for outstanding warrants and the recovery of a stolen gun and car.
