PALMER -- Donna Anthony, a 38-year-old Palmer police investigator, created the Santa Cop Program in 2004. Officers from Wasilla and Palmer police departments, as well as Alaska State Troopers, deliver gifts on Christmas Day to home-bound seniors around the Mat-Su. Some officers and troopers even make the rounds though they aren't working that day. But Anthony isn't just good at the touchy-feely stuff.
An investigator with the Mat-Su drug unit for the last three years, Anthony helps bust dealers and prescription forgers. As a Palmer patrol officer in 2005, she was hailed by Palmer's chamber of commerce as a hero for breaking up a domestic dispute in a Palmer apartment complex, a terrifying call involving a man beating and trying to strangle his girlfriend as she clutched her young child.
Anthony talked about Santa Cop -- and her history -- during a recent interview. Excerpts are below. She asked her photograph not run with the story because she works undercover.
Q. Why seniors?
A. I'll give you one story. It was maybe five, six years ago, I'm on patrol, dispatch calls me on the radio: "I need you to call me. I've got a strange call for you. We have this lady at one of the facilities here who's dying. The husband's calling. Her last wish is to meet you before she passes. She's dying of cancer." I thought they were joking. They told me they weren't joking. ...
I got one of our Palmer PD patches and a teddy bear. The husband came out and he met me. He told me before we went in, his wife, sitting in her recliner, would watch out the window as I'm doing these traffic stops. He said, "She's not used to women doing those kind of things." She would watch me put people on the ground, handcuff 'em, and she learned to admire me from these traffic stops. She's pretty ill. Maybe in her 50s or 60s but she looked like she was 80. It was awful. I spent time with her.
I realized while I was in uniform that I could make a difference. We have such a huge senior population in Palmer and we respond to all these calls and see how they're in need.
Q. How has the program changed since then?
A. This year we added Houston's senior center. ... This is the largest year because I was always so quiet and we're a police department (and couldn't take cash donations). We had 56 seniors last year; we'll probably have 100 this year.
This year we're actually taking money through a separate account at Matanuska Valley Credit Union. We've already got $11,000, which is pretty great.
Q. Is it hard to get people to work on Christmas to deliver gifts?
A. No, it's just short man hours because you only have so many people on the road. They may have the day off; they can bring family members with them if supervisors approve.
If you've got little kids and they want to see daddy not arresting somebody, this is a positive thing, spending some time with a senior. People think all we do is arrest people. The image has changed; we want to change that. When I was a kid in Anchorage, I loved cops. Now they (kids) say pretty mean things.
Q. Why is that, why has that image changed?
A. I don't know why. I have an opinion. When I go to the high schools, they have this attitude, but it seems they're learning from their parents.
Q. But has the job changed?
A. There's more training. Terrorism is an issue now. You're always looking at more training for domestic violence. All this paperwork for DUIs. So you're always getting retrained, updated training; it's not just driving on patrol any more.
Q. Tell me more about that domestic incident back in 2005.
A. I was by myself. It took a while for backup. (Anthony paused) I haven't even talked about it with my family....
Q. How come?
A. Sometimes it's hard to talk about those things. Because I still remember her screaming. I'm at the door and she's screaming. I'm not sure what it is, what I'm walking into. More officers get killed walking into a domestic situation.
I felt I had no choice. I had to walk in. ... I'm walking down the hallway, it's pitch black, I heard this screaming, it leads me into a back bedroom. All I can see is this guy on top of her, he's got his knee on her arm. ... I handcuff him. I notice the whole time she's getting punched in the face she's trying to hold her baby, she's trying to protect her baby. She thought he was going to kill her.
Q. Was she OK?
A. She left him last I heard. ... But you still hear the screaming.
By ZAZ HOLLANDER
zhollander@adn.com