Anchorage mayoral candidate Amy Demboski said she was at a Fireweed Lane parking lot Friday, waiting in a car with a gun in reach, when a familiar car pulled into the lot. It appeared to be the same Ford that had showed up in a surveillance video earlier in the day in which two of her large campaign signs were vandalized.
Demboski, who has complained about a spate of odd attacks on her signs -- her face and name cut out, but in most cases the rest of the signs left intact -- said she watched as a man got out of the car and approached one of her signs with a utility knife.
On Monday, in her first news media interview since she confronted and filmed the man, Joshua Whittaker, 54, Demboski said she chose to wait at that spot Friday evening because it was where one of her few 4-by-8-foot signs remained intact and she suspected the vandal would strike again.
She said she was alone and armed; volunteers stationed themselves at other signs, she said.
Coming the weekend before the municipal election, it was one of the more unusual pre-election incidents in a city known for its interesting politics.
According to a report provided Monday by the Anchorage Police Department, Demboski had been waiting in the parking lot at 204 E. Fireweed Lane about 20 minutes when the man showed up in the blue 1995 Ford about 7:15 p.m.
It was a chance encounter, Demboski told Alaska Dispatch News. She said she got out of the car to stop him, and took still pictures and videos on her smartphone.
"Most of our signs in Midtown had been hit," Demboski said. "It was pure happenstance that (the man) and I were in the same location."
She said she initially took pictures of the man holding the box cutter in his right hand. She said she asked him who he was. He responded by handing her his driver's license. She photographed the ID, then began filming the man, according to the police report.
The man tossed the knife into his car, and Demboski said she never removed her gun from its holster. But the gun was visible as permitted under Alaska law.
"I was exercising my right to open carry," Demboski said. "I never put my hand on it, never gestured it, never told him I had one. That was not at all part of it."
In the verbal exchange recorded on the video, the man speaks angrily about the municipal sign ordinance and appears to accuse her of using her gender in her campaign.
"If you'd have put 'Demboski' without the pretty face, the pink lipstick and the 'Amy,' you might've had a better chance of winning," the man said.
The man denied damaging other signs. As the man drove off, he told Demboski, "Amy, I'll see you in court." She got a clear photograph of his rear license plate.
Earlier, about 4 that afternoon, a surveillance camera at a business at Fifth Avenue and Karluk Street, Insurance Max, had captured the Ford driving up and a man getting out.
"The actual process of the sign being damaged was not captured on the video," according to the police report, prepared by the responding officer, David Abbott. "However, the suspect can be seen walking away from the vehicle toward the sign, and returning a short time later carrying what appear to be sections cut from the sign. The suspect places the items in the rear of his vehicle and drives away."
After responding to Fireweed Lane about 7:30 p.m. and interviewing Demboski, Abbott and two other officers went to Whittaker's home and found Whittaker standing out front.
"Whittaker suggested that I might be there to commend him for picking up litter," Abbott wrote. "Including garbage on the street and illegal campaign signs." But Whittaker appeared to expect to be arrested, Abbott wrote. Instead, the officer cited him, charging him with criminal mischief for damage to two signs at Fifth and Karluk.
Whittaker has a mandatory court date set for May 8.
Demboski said she has had concealed weapons permits in the past but doesn't have one now.