Alaska State Troopers may have a new four-man crime suppression unit. But the guys with the badges are merely the tip of a swarm of crime busters who've had enough of thieves stealing other people's stuff. Thousands of citizen sleuths have taken to social media to thwart the bad guys and attempt to find stolen trucks, guns, snowmachines, jewelry, kitchen cabinetry and more.
"Your neighbors are your first line of defense," said Vicki Chaffin Wallner, founder of the Facebook group "Stop Valley Thieves," where people can post pictures of stolen property, notify each other about strange goings on, and seek help identifying people caught in the act from security pictures and videos. "Anytime we can come together as a valley and make our neighborhoods better and safe places, that's what it's all about."
In a little more than six months, the page has gathered 4,245 fans. Contributors credit each other with helping bust the bad guys, sometimes just hours after a crime has occurred.
"There is no doubt in my mind that the site is useful for the people in the Valley to keep their eyes open for stolen stuff. I can't think of a better way," said Sgt. Tony Wegrzyn, head of Alaska State Troopers' new Matanuska Valley crime suppression unit.
Social media has the power to marshal intense and widespread vigilance with merely a keystroke and in a matter of minutes. But having dozens, hundreds or even thousands of eyeballs on a case comes with its own set of complications.
"When you put a suspect's photo on it, the suspect knows. Because trust me: The suspects are watching that site. If I was a thief, that's where I would go first to see if anything I've done is in there," Wegrzyn said.
Still in its infancy, Wegrzyn's team is already delivering results. The new suppression unit is in its second week of operation and has yielded 15 felony indictments and recovered $20,000 to $30,000 in stolen property, he said.
Meanwhile, Wallner's volunteer network of armchair civilian sleuths has become a relentless force in the crackdown on crime.
An online chase
Eating last week at Evangelo's restaurant in Wasilla, Anchorage's Chris DeVito hadn't thought the set of snowmachines he was towing behind his vehicle would disappear over dinner. But as luck -- or bad luck -- would have it, they did.
DeVito and his wife had spent the day visiting friends in Big Lake and decided to get dinner. They'd parked in the upper parking lot and went in to the restaurant around 7:30 that night. By the time they were done -- close to 9 -- the trailer and the sleds it carried were gone. Someone had disconnected the trailer from DeVito's vehicle, and driven off.
"We were just kind of shellshocked that they were gone. It was so brazen," he said.
There's no way to know whether what DeVito did next helped him get his stuff back. But it didn't hurt. He had someone call the cops. And then he told his wife and friends to go on Facebook. He was lucky that they had a picture taken earlier that day of the machines and knew their VIN numbers and the license plate on the trailer.
DeVito estimates that between himself, his wife, and their two friends, they were able to notify about 2,000 people via social media within minutes of the theft. By the time they'd driven back to Anchorage, someone had posted the theft on Stop Valley Thieves, and tips were already coming in.
"Social media picked it up and ran with it," DeVito said.
A driver thought she'd seen the trailer and snowmachines on Knik Goose Bay Road. Another reported seeing a truck pulling out fast from near Evangelo's around the time of the theft -- so fast that the trailer fishtailed. As the truck rolled by going about 20 mph over the speed limit, the witness noticed there were no taillights on the trailer. This made sense to DeVito, since whoever stole his trailer and the machines it carried likely wouldn't have taken the time, or had the right setup, to make all of the electrical connections.
The timeline synced up with one given by a waiter from the restaurant, who had gone out to move his own vehicle and recalled seeing DeVito's trailer and snowmachines. Sometime between 8:30 p.m. and 8:50 p.m., the thieves struck.
Wasilla police responded quickly. Within minutes of DeVito's call, an officer arrived at Evangelo's. The same officer happened to be driving down KGB road when a homeowner called in to report someone had abandoned a trailer and two snowmachines on his dead-end street.
Less than three hours after he noticed the theft, the same officer placed a welcomed call to DeVito: "We have your snowmachines and trailer." It was a huge relief. DeVito estimates the loss would have been about $30,000 had the trailer not been found.
Why did the thieves stash the loot and run?
"We think it just got too hot for them," Wallner said, theorizing that if the crooks or their friends monitor Facebook at all, and especially the Stop Valley Thieves page, they knew the stolen goods were being sought.
Wasilla police won't comment on whether the pressure from the citizen force of watchers helped recover DeVito's property. Because there's really no way to know for sure. But department spokesman Rick Manrique believes heightened awareness is generally a good thing.
"Logic and common sense would dictate that any time there is greater community involvement through social media or any other venue that would assist us in bringing about a positive conclusion, that's a good thing," he said.
On the run
One man has already managed to avoid arrest by keeping track of what's being said about him online. Almando Abarca, 22, is one of two men suspected in the recent theft of a pawn store ATM in Wasilla. He bonded out of custody from those charges on Jan 2. But within a week, he'd be in the hot seat again.
Wasilla Boys and Girls Club manager Howie Marx had been trying to figure out who'd used one of his staff members' Boys and Girls Club Wal-Mart credit card. The organization hadn't realized it was missing until the finance department called up and asked just how many iPads Marx was planning to buy. iPads? They hadn't purchased any. That's when Marx realized someone was having a heyday with the credit card, which upon further research he determined had gone missing.
Whoever did the shopping had racked up $5,400 in charges buying iPads, Beats by Dre headphones, a Sony Playstation and other items, Marx said. That left the Wasilla Boys and Girls Club unable to buy supplies it needed for kids' activities, like art and cooking classes.
The crime was discovered in November. Marx said the wait to ID the people involved was frustrating. Police seemed stumped. So he pushed for a chance to have his own run at it, telling the police, "If you get me the picture, I will get you a name within a day. Maybe even hours."
By Jan. 9, Marx had gotten hold of security images showing someone using the card. He posted to the Stop Valley Thieves page looking for help identifying the person. In less than two hours, group members had come up with a name: Almando Abarca.
Marx called Wasilla police to let them know the man in the photo might be Abarca.
That same night, Alaska State Troopers closed in on Abarca's ATM heist co-defendent, Luc Mackie, 21, and Mackie's girlfriend, Nycole Sorrow, 21, as allegedly being involved in the credit card use and theft.
"If you didn't have that website, I highly doubt this ever would have gotten solved," Marx said.
But by that evening, Abarca had disappeared.
Wegrzyn said he's positive Abarca got the heads-up through social media. He's aware that Abarca knew people who'd seen the discussion unfolding on Stop Valley Thieves. Mackie and Sorrow got caught because they didn't have Facebook, he said.
Vigilance versus vigilantes
The success of Stop Valley Thieves channels local frustration that Wegrzyn and his team see all too often: People have had enough of having their homes and vehicles broken into and having their cars, firearms, money, jewelry, snowmachines and other possessions stolen. Simply put, property crime in the Valley is maddeningly frequent -- hence the group's 4,000-plus members.
"Business is booming," Wegrzyn said, explaining that his unit has been busier than expected since Jan. 1, when it got underway.
Wallner, a businesswoman married to a trooper, started her anti-crime Facebook group after learning about a two-man "smash and grab" team operating in local neighborhoods last summer.
"I thought, 'I'm going to start a little group so that when we hear this stuff we can share it with each other.' Once I put it on there, it'd been seen all over the Valley," Wallner said.
"Theft is a fairly common occurrence in the Valley. Any kind of awareness in the community is a good thing. And that's generally how we get our best leads," said Alaska State Trooper Lt. Robert French, a Palmer-based deputy commander.
There's a second perk to having a network of attentive citizens chatting with each other: moral support.
"I think so far it has been a positive thing. It gives people a place to vent and talk about what is going on," French said.
For Wallner, it's all about building community. There's the on-the-ground work you can do by getting to know your neighbors, people she calls "your first line of defense" who, if alert, "can keep you from being burglarized while you're at work." Then, there's the branching out that can occur online -- the swift information bursts reporting suspicious activity, thefts and stolen goods.
Stop Valley Thieves is intended to be an awareness booster, not to encourage people to take the law into their own hands, Wallner said.
So far, so good. But Wegrzyn says it can be a difficult balance to maintain.
"It's great for spreading the word. We've just got to be really careful when we start posting suspect photos," he said. "If we don't vet the information, it turns into the electronic version of villagers with pitchforks and torches. I don't want to see a very well-intended website turn into something where the thieves get more out of than we do."
Wegrzyn himself visits the Stop Valley Thieves page throughout the week and says he hasn't seen anything get out of hand. And as for Abarca going underground?
"If that's the worst thing we have to deal with, I'm still OK with it. We're still doing OK. The Facebook page is doing a good thing for good people in the Valley," he said.
Making a difference is the goal of both units -- Wallner's network of well-meaning citizens and the new state trooper Valley property-crime squad.
Wallner's bottom line? "We all want safer neighborhoods and better places to raise our kids."
Meanwhile, Wergzyn wants people to know that a few of the bad guys will inevitably get away with their crimes. But others won't. And his team is up to the task.
"If we don't catch somebody, it's not because we didn't try. Because we throw everything we have at any one of these cases we get. I think people underestimate the tenacity of four high-drive Alaska State Troopers. But four guys can do a lot," he said.
Contact Jill Burke at jill@alaskadispatch.com.