Anchorage Police Department Chief Mark Mew is retiring after serving in the top spot since January 2010. It was his second stint at the police department, having retired in 2003 after spending three decades serving in different units to work for the city's school district.
As his time at APD comes to a close, Alaska Dispatch News sat down with him -- and, separately, with incoming chief Chris Tolley (see below). Mew said he's optimistic about the future of APD and he's disappointed he won't be a part of it.
What were your expectations when you were assigned as chief and how did those change over time?
When I came back as chief it was in January 2010. The economy had just crashed. It was clear to me when I got here that we were going to have budget issues for some period of time moving forward. Of course, I didn't have a crystal ball and know how long it would be. One of the first things that happened when I got here was Mayor Dan Sullivan wanted to do a deployment study so we could know exactly where and how many officers we should have, how they should be deployed in ways to maximize our efforts at community policing. That was one of the first things we did, and in the first few months we tried to set up a vision for how to do proactive police work. We got started on that and I was always a proponent of that kind of policing, and was involved in some early experiments with that during my previous career here.
We got the (Police Executive Research Forum, or PERF) report back. That gave us a good road map. We started to implement the plan, but frankly what happened there was the fiscal problem worsened, our financial problems deepened and we weren't permitted to grow the way the report suggested we should grow. We weren't able to keep our staffing flat under a suggested model in the report to start on community policing. We lost officers for several years in a row. We had no academies, and in the end, it just wasn't possible to implement that plan. The first part of my career, my expectations were that we would do a lot more innovative, proactive policing. That just wasn't in the cards; it wasn't the hand that we were dealt.
We turned our attention on other things like social media. That was a big change for us. When I started as chief, I was encouraged by a number of people to try and do more with social media. I was dead set against it, frankly. Some of the experiences we had with the media caused me to rethink that idea, and I did a complete 180 and came to the realization that while we'd always be working with the media, there was opportunity to make our own message, get it out the way we wanted it.
Recently, police forces have been in the spotlight due to events elsewhere. Has APD had to adapt because of increased scrutiny?
I think most of us know what we need to do. I think the question is how nimble is your organization, or how willing is that department to change? I think we're very nimble and we've done a lot of things here that need to be done ... Part of what we saw, one of the trends, is the Department of Justice is seeking consent decrees at more and more departments around the country. We don't want that to happen here. We feel that if we keep our house in order and we have a good relationship with our community, we explain what we do, and our policies are properly conceived and well-followed, then the DOJ will spend its time elsewhere.
How has the police department avoided actions like that?
We rewrote our policies and retrained because we want to make sure what we do is the best practice. ... We did that about the same time we were seeing a spike in officer-involved shootings. People may remember 2012 and 2013 were high for us. We made some drastic and somewhat controversial changes to our policies. Our shootings, knock on wood, seem to be back down. We brought (the University of Alaska Anchorage) in and gave them access and let them study 20 years of officer-involved shooting data. They published that data for everyone to read and now they do annual updates. We want the public to know what we're about -- the good and the bad.
With all the headlines about increasing police scrutiny, what would you like the public to know about APD?
It's funny, we're putting out a lot of information that we've never put out before. I wonder really how much of it people are absorbing sometimes. We may put our policies online, and there's a single day's news on it, and a few people may read it. But then we put up a video of some yaks on Eagle River Road and there are thousands of hits. What are people absorbing? Yak pictures. I'd like them to know our policies. That stuff may be dense, so more importantly I'd like the community to see us as humans. And the yak picture helps with that. Anything with cops and animals tends to generate a lot of interest.
There's a lot of humor in this job. There really is. Typically, we have a talking head in front of the police station, or a sergeant at a crime scene standing in front of yellow tape reiterating some facts. We'd like to get away from that. We'd like the public to see us as humans, as men and women out there with their boots on the ground.
How can the police department improve itself, other than by adding more officers?
A couple of things, and they do require more cops. If you read PERF, it tells us how to get to 30 percent unobligated time. I don't want to sound too much like a bureaucrat, but that's an important number. That's a number where the officer has a useful amount of time on their shift where they can do smarter policing. We are stuck right now in a reactive mode, and when you're in that mode you're treading water, but you're never really going to prevent crime. That's where we need to go. That requires proactive work.
In doing that, officers are going to identify repeat problems, think and innovate solutions themselves. The officers with their free time will be beat owners. They'll be responsible for keeping the peace in their areas of town and they'll have time on their hands to find out -- from their community or the data or both -- what insidious repeat problems are bothering the residents on their beat, then try and make that problem go away.
The other thing is better engagement with the community. Much of what we do is answering calls and being adversarial and trying to affect the crime rate. We need to spend more time with kids in schools, attending the community council meetings and figuring out the leaders in certain areas. The officers need to be up to speed with problems at the neighborhood level, as well as city issues working their way through the Assembly. Those are other things we need to be doing as well, but you need to have the bodies to do it.
Chris Tolley
Incoming APD chief Chris Tolley said the first thing he'd like people to know about him is that he's a husband and father. Second, he's a neighbor; he lives near downtown Anchorage. And third, he's dedicated his adult life to public safety.
Tolley started his career in law enforcement as a patrol officer in Baltimore. That lasted about six years. For the last 28 years, he worked with the Drug Enforcement Administration on assignments both national and international. He worked in Alaska with the agency for the past two years.
How do you think working for the DEA will inform your new role at the department?
I think it gives me a lot of life experiences to draw from. I've had the fortunate opportunity over the years to observe how different agencies conduct law enforcement in their communities, both in very large cities such as Los Angeles and in much smaller places like U.S. territories out in the Pacific. So, the thing I loved most about my time at DEA was going into those agencies and observing the staff. You would think they're all DEA agents or federal employees, but they're usually not. Sometimes, maybe only half of them are, such as in Anchorage. In reality, some of those investigators are from APD, as well as Alaska State Troopers, airport police.
Those partnerships -- wow. ... APD has been a fabulous partner here in Alaska, as well as the troopers.
What issues would you like to address at APD in the long- and short-term?
By far the priority for the department is going to be recruiting, initially. And we know that by doing that, we'll bring more officers to APD, which will allow us to achieve goals of doing proactive, community policing where officers work with the community to provide a level of service that makes Anchorage a safe, secure and strong place. This is something that will take a while to build up. We of course need immediate action in the short term, but it is a long-term project to get the staffing levels up to where they need to be.
I want a department that is reflective of Anchorage. Recruitment goes with that, and that's going to be a real challenge. But the way the public can help is by talking with their neighbors, their family members and doing searching within their own hearts and commit to public service, for a career or maybe a few years, but seriously consider helping their community. I don't know if your readers are aware that there's a misconception that all law enforcement are criminal justice majors or come from similar backgrounds. Really, many officers have varying degrees of educational backgrounds and life experiences. They may be accountants or teachers.
Does that desired input from the public include working toward alternatives to criminal penalties?
I don't think anyone looks at law enforcement as officers going out and trying to make as many arrests as possible, sending people to jail. Laws are on the books, fines are set and ordinances are made to correct behavior. That's what this is all about.
I think that we have to be conscientious of all that goes into crime. What's the true cause of particular crimes? Is it from poor upbringing, lack of family structure, lack of a good diet and overall taking care of yourself? Quite often people involved in crime are vulnerable because they're not as prepared as they should be. So, anything we can do to help to prevent law enforcement from having to take corrective action, enforcing laws and so on, that makes our lives a lot easier. We're all for that.
Is there something that's happened at APD that you would have handled differently?
I don't want to look into the past and second-guess their decisions. I'm looking toward the future. I think we have a bright future here, and I want to create an environment of enthusiasm and leave a legacy of making this a real desirable department to be a part of.
A lot of instances over the years in my short time of living in Anchorage, I've noticed some very impressive accomplishments, such as the mass murder cases within the past few years. I'm amazed at the efficiency of our ability to solve crimes, the serious crimes that impacted the community.
Given your background with the DEA, have you thought about how the emerging marijuana industry will affect the police department?
The voters of Alaska have spoken and this is something that's in a transitional state. As recently as (Wednesday) night, there were elections that took place in the state that will affect how their communities handle the changes. We're doing the same thing. It seems what the state is ultimately going to come up with is guiding the Anchorage Assembly. But ultimately, it's not going to be easy. It's going to have its challenges. There's a lot to consider but we're going to move forward and carry out what the community wants.
It's yet to be seen whether it will be carried out in a safe and structured way. We'll just have to see. We're going to have to adapt and be as professional as we can in carrying out our role in all of it.
This transcript has been edited for length.