Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Alaska state troopers

Most troopers are the nicest people out there. The ones who have many years on the job are awesome. However, there are many who get washed out after about 2 or 3 years in.

That's why most murder arrests are "twofers" for the public.

Dirt bag off another dirt bag. One ends up in the ground, the other in a cell. There was a recent murder, I think it was in New Jersey. Cops were able to round of 19 for various levels of involvement in the crime. It turned into quit the street cleaning.

And this is part of the problem. Cops spend so much time with the bottom 2% they forget how to act toward the remaining 98% of the population, especially when they encounter them while in uniform. Understand, I'm not saying I could do any better. It's one of the hazards, perhaps even inevitable consequences, of continuously confronting tragedy and evil.

The Egyptians figured this out a long time ago:

While I believe this is probably true, the fact that the Troopers seem unwilling to bend when any suggestion is made that some aren't doing things well, means that the bad ones languish in the system, and perhaps even endanger their co-workers. I have sometimes wondered if the tragedy in Tanana might have been avoided had there been a different response to the Kodiak encounter which was embedded in the News Miner link I posted earlier. I didn't know the father well, but I had met and conversed with him a couple of times. He was obviously, in hindsight anyway, a rather disturbed individual. But one would not have known that from a casual encounter. Negatives tend to build up.

Another part of the AST PR difficulty is that they mostly tend to avoid developing meaningful public relations in the small communities they are assigned to. Coming into the small communities almost always for the purpose of investigating an alleged crime, or making an arrest, is hardly an effective way to develop trust. Those who make their rounds through the villages, talk to kids and adults, and overnight a few times a year tend to have a much easier time with difficult cases when they arise.

AST (blue shirt) RET, felt compelled to address some issues raised in this post, not as an apologist, but hopefully to shine some light on the subject:
(1) Alaska State Troopers is an entertainment television show, should be viewed as such.
(2) LEOs (although held to a higher standard) are in the end just human beings with all the same frailties and weaknesses. (3) Law enforcement (as my mentor COL Randy Crawford RIP would say) is the [bleep] business.
(4) AST are spread incredibly thin compared to LE anywhere in the world.
(5) Community policing (effective concept) is extremely difficult to execute in rural Alaska. Many occasions the only interaction the village has with LE is when the AST arrives to place a loved one into custody.

I have limited experience in Alaska Law Enforcement, majority of my career patrolling the road system, Some Bush experience: Prisoner Transport, Governors Security Detail, Joint Fugitive Task Force and Statewide Drug Enforcement Unit.

I am sorry, for all those who have a negative experience with a LEO, possibly on the worst day of both of your lives. I just have to stand up with the Blue Line.

No kidding. I feel sorry for those cops having to deal with those idiots on a regular basis. Not for me!!

I got pulled over one time when I was there. I deserved a speeding ticket. The trooper asked me why I was in a hurry. After explaining to him why, he let me go.

me too , my reason was : my wife ran away with a trooper , when I saw your car I thought you were returning her.

Well said...

I’ve run the gamut. As life would have it I had some interaction with AST Troy Duncan back before that idiot in Manley shot him.

Troy was as a good of a guy as you’re apt to ever meet

I’ve met rookies that were a lil shook up. But not bad guys, just nervous,

Didn’t know Scott, one of the troopers killed in Tanana, but my wife did, said he was an extremely nice young man

I’m with Calvin, you couldn’t pay me enough to do what they do, but I’m grateful for the ones (most btw ime) that do their jobs with honor and integrity

Plus 1.

It's very easy to spot - and respect- those who understand this. ("Because my mother-in-law lives in New Jersey," or similar snark, is not one of the markers. )




Again, not a well-understood concept, nor is respect or appreciation mutual. The professional folks often forget that the 'boots-on-the-ground' folks, the people who live rural lives and are often 'first responders' (and often the only realistic responders), risk life and property, at their own expense, without thanks or compensation. Most of those people don't expect thanks or compensation either, but they do expect a degree of humanity and compassion when the Blue Shirts show up.

I'm sure the "[bleep] load" does become odious at times for LEO, but that need not be an automatic assumption, which seems far too common anymore. But again, most anyone given the right set of circumstances can become an [bleep], and many or most of them can be defused or de-escalated by a known or trusted face.

Wow! This is shocking!

[quote=Steelhead]I've never had a good experience with any brown shirt I've encountered.[/quote

You have either not met many -- or there are other stories you are leaving out .
I get to meet a lot in my line of work and like any profession there are always a few who abuse their power but the majority are professional and a good many of them are dedicated and exceptional humans.

where ? in Azerbaijan ? I have stories to tell about bad ones but there were not in US.

P.

I have a cousin who lives in North Pole and was married to an AST. I don't remember much about him since it's been 30 years since I last spoke with him. She teaches in North Pole/Fairbanks and he lives in Healy but she says she sees him on her or his days off. So being divorced doesn't mean they don't stay in touch or spend time together. She implied because of the duties they had to spend a lot of time apart and when he got transferred she decided to stay in North pole because of her job and he settled in Healy. I also have a good friend who lives in Anchorage and his son-in-law is an AST. I understand he is currently an investigator for them.

It has got to be tough being an AST because of the remote duties and the long missions away from home. (like the military) I guess I can understand why they can get growly and difficult to get along with if you should happen to find yourself on their bad side. Plus, they (we) saw the same old issues every day. The same people doing the same stupid stuff their parents probably did and possibly their grand parents did, as well.

Yea, the young ones have to learn how to sort the wheat from the chaff and the older Troopers are tired of dealing with the same old same old. Doctors and lawyers get to "practice" their career choices for their whole lives but Troopers and LEO's have to know it all from day one until the day they retire and aren't allowed any mistakes along the way. How about giving the Troopers and the LEO's the same consideration that doctors and lawyers get ??

kwg

Not specifically "Alaska" but let me offer perspective from a former Trooper who worked a rather rural area.

There are many things to consider, and I am not going to hit but a fraction of them, as I don't feel like writing a novel the size of "War and Peace", and those who don't like LEOs will still hate them, and those who still do, probably will continue to do so.

One thing to consider is that as a trooper you often work alone with ZERO backup, or backup that is so far away that by the time it gets there, odds are if a fight/deadly force encounter is going to take place it will be completely settled long before anyone else gets there. Years back I worked an area that covered 10 counties. Each of those counties averaged (rough guess) 2,000 square miles. There might be 2 of us working, and sometimes a supervisor in the main office. So on any given night, you might be covering 10,000 square miles. You might have 1 deputy in each of those 10 counties but odds are he might be "on call" and therefore in bed, and 45 minutes to an hour before he is available for backup.

The short version is you are on your own. What this means is you need to learn to pick your battles wisely and not get in over your head. That is easy to say, but sometimes you get into things without intending to do so. What looks like a simple "motorist assist/vehicle broken down" that you stop to check on, turns out to be 4 schitbirds transferring pounds of meth from one vehicle to another on a deserted stretch of blacktop, miles from anyone. Now you are truly on your own. They know it and you know it. This is when you need to decided if you can win this fight or not.

One other notable thing I have observed is "Trooper" mentality. When you go to an "advanced " state police academy, it is nothing even remotely like the regular LE academy. Night and day different. The academic, groundfighting, shooting, PT, and general performance standards are substantially higher. The flip side is that they feed you with this "you are the elite" LE nonsense. While it is true that the training is at a much higher level, they make young recruits think that they are "supermen". Part of this is to give them confidence to deal with working alone.

The down side to this is that the Troopers then take a condescending/"I am the superior officer here" attitude toward other LE officers. Generally speaking this mostly only seems to effect those who have never been in LE before. The guys with prior LE time see it for what it is, and take it all with a grain of salt. However the guys who have never been cops, more often than not think they are something special. They are the ones who truly end up giving the rest the "Trooper" reputation.

The funny part of that is that many of those new Troopers don't have a clue and will show up on an agency assist call and try to take over, when they are clearly NOT the subject matter expert. More than a few times I have told a young trooper to shut his mouth, and that we are going to do what the city shift supervisor/SGT asks us to do on a building search. The guys working the city probably clear houses/buildings more than 10 times your average trooper does. Therefore a new trooper needs to be quiet and to watch and learn.

It is true that 95% of the time you are dealing with 5% of the population, and that 5% are the true scum of the earth. The thing to remember is that 5% of the time you are dealing with the other 95% of the population, and they are normal everyday people. Those good hard working everyday people need to get treated differently than you would treat a career criminal.

It is those normal everyday people and how they are dealt with that can make or break a person reputation wise. The way I figured it was this. The 95% of the population that we don't normally ever deal with have screwed up somehow if they are in contact with LE for something of a potential criminal nature.

That said, more often than not what has happened is a lapse of otherwise good judgement. Usually these lapses of judgement are fueled by alcohol, and/or emotions, and there is often some sort of failed relationship in the mix. These are normally good people who have done really stupid things that have consequences that could haunt them the rest of their lives if they are dealt with in the same manner you would deal with a career scumbag/predator.

That is where you need to see the "Grey". As long as some policy or law has not forced your hand (like domestic violence, where there are visible marks on people) then generally speaking it is in the interest of almost everyone involved to find a solution that minimizes involvement with the judicial system.

Having a friend come pick up the person who has done something stupid, and will stay with him until he sobers up, or stay with him until he has his head on straight is almost always better for everyone than putting someone in county jail, and maybe having someone lose a drivers license, which in turn causes them to lose a job, which in turn causes more and more problems.

As long as the only things he has damaged are his own, or everyone involved agrees that they can work things out when emotions are not fueled by alcohol, and people are calmed down, then there is no reason to complicate matters by getting a person who has no real criminal record (or not since he was a kid) involved with the courts. The world is not black and white like speed limit signs.

The problem is that it normally takes years to learn to make good judgement calls, mistakes get made, and in today's world, it is the guy at the bottom of the totem pole that gets tossed under the bus when things don't go right, and is purely a sacrificial lamb to be burned at the stake by his own agency/local government for public appeasement. It happens pretty much every day some place.

Ironically, in the age of video and getting snippets of 2 dimensional views of things that have gone poorly, now we literally have 10s of millions of LE subject matter experts. They all know how they would have personally done it better, even though they have never been to an academy, never read the policy manual, never been trained a certain way, never been told that you cannot do X or A or B or C, and literally have never been in a fight since high school, let alone in a fight that if they lose will mean they will die right there on the tweakers filthy carpet in a house that stinks so bad you can smell the filth and body odor before the front door is even opened.

It is no wonder that most of the troopers I see these days have less than 5 years of service. Most see it for what it is, and find something else.

1. Buddy's boat breaks down. Calls us on radio. An hour later we get to him, attach a line and start towing him back to the dock. He's in a 16' skiff, we are in a 17' Whaler. Going at a slow bell. Troopers come hauling ass around the corner in their boat. Pull up and say 'Are you guys hunting?" I say 'No, we are towing'. He then says 'Are you sure you aren't hunting'

I then say 'Look around, it's an open Whaler, center console, only me and the steering wheel'

He then says 'Is the guy in the boat you are towing hunting?' I then say 'No, he is being towed'. He says ok and hauls ass away. Never says 'do you need anything, any help, fu*k you, nothing.


2. Guy calls locals says he found traps and it's not trapping season. The next day some troopers arrive, along with a few game cops they flew down from Juneau. Guy shows them the traps he found and the troopers pull them.

They then contact the station (since we were the only ones out there) and ask about the traps. They say trapping season doesn't start until December 1st and I had the traps set on November 15th. I then asked them if the fact that they were #5's with 200 pounds of drag chain attached if that gave them a clue as to what kind of traps they were. I told them that trapping for wolf is legal starting on the 10th of November.

They huddle together, make a few phone calls and then say 'You are right, it is wolf trapping season' I then had them return all the traps to where they found them and to reset them.

That only cost the state a few plane tickets, a 40 mile round trip boat ride and the salaries for 5 guys for 2 days.


3. Going to boat headed to town. I have a rifle with me, in a case. Tropper shows up at dock and says 'I need to see your hunting license' I say I don't have one on me. He says he's going to have to ticket me for not have a license since it was bear season and I had a rifle. I told him it's always bear season (10 months of the year) and I'm allowed to have a rifle with me. I told him I had a rubber in my wallet too, but that I wasn't fugging. We went round a few more times before he said 'Get out of here'


4. Trooper pull crab traps we have set in inlet. Locate us again and proceed to read me the riot act about using game meat for crab traps. Says it's not legal and I will be cited. I say yes, game meat isn't allowed but its the hind quarter from a wolf, which isn't game meat. You can still make out the paw. He says they will send it in for testing. Some time later I get a call, yep it was wolf,so no problems.


I have several more if that will ease your mind

Just because you Phil give reach arounds, don't mean all of us do.

That, the whole thing, seems to be a very good summation and perspective on law. From the AST angle, I would only say that roadless rural Alaska, though it is similar in some ways to other remote parts of the country, is less meth-haven inclined (so far), and more dependent on relational cooperation - and not just in law enforcement. Unfortunately, it is also a place that seems to scare a lot of the people that would be assigned there, so it can become a dumping ground of sorts, much like it was for the Catholic Church did back in the 50's and 60's. That serves no one's best interests.

Some of the best LEO work I have seen done 'out there' has been time spent drinking coffee with parents in school hallways and cafeterias with parents and kids as they are dropped off. Knowing people's names matters.