Police secrecy is a bad business for Anchorage

You have to wonder sometimes whether officials in this city — now or in the past — ever have really understood the quaint notion that the people who pay their salaries have a right to know what is going on.

Take the secret suspension of former Anchorage Police Chief Mark Mew in 2015, for instance. Oh, you had not heard of it? Very few had until KTUU's Austin Baird put it on television. Except for a fluke disclosure in a Superior Court judge's order, the suspension likely still would be buried.

It boggles the mind that the city's former top cop secretly could be suspended without pay for two weeks — and the public be left in the dark. It says a lot about this city and its past and present officials' penchant for secrecy. What else, you might rightfully ask, are our betters not telling us?

Anchorage Mayor Ethan Berkowitz, et al., remain mum on the subject — even though Mew's undisclosed suspension took place on former Mayor Dan Sullivan's watch.

Why was Mew quietly sidelined? An independent investigation commissioned by the city — and carried out by a retired Pennsylvania state trooper — concluded Mew failed to immediately act when he learned of a subordinate's misconduct in investigations into sexual assaults and illegal drug-dealing by Alaska National Guard members, a judge says.

Sullivan appointed Mew head of the Anchorage Police Department in 2010.

For the next five years, the city and two minority policemen — Eli Feliciano and Al Kennedy — slugged it out in court over the officers' allegations they were victims of retaliation for pointing out discrimination within APD.

The case went to trial twice. The first ended in a hung jury. The second jury ruled in March against Anchorage.

[Judge cites 'dirty tricks' in APD discrimination case. Citizens should take note]

A frustrated Superior Court Judge Frank Pfiffner ordered the city to cough up $2.7 million — more than the jury award, he said, because of the city's "hide the ball" and Nixonian litigation tactics. Mew's suspension is revealed for the first time in Pfiffner's order, Baird reports.

The city is saying nothing about Mew's suspension, pointing to personnel rules.

"We are not allowed by code to release personnel records of public officials," says Myer Hutchinson, Berkowitz's communications director.

It is not a new gambit. Take the mysterious case of former Anchorage Fire Department Chief Mark Hall, who in 2010 got involved in an imbroglio of some sort at the Hotel Captain Cook.

Police were called. A female officer described Hall in her report as intoxicated, but not incapacitated; that he was yelling and poking his finger in her face as events unfolded. Hall called the cop a liar and beefed her to her bosses; they investigated and cleared her.

The Sullivan administration assiduously pooh-poohed the incident, never saying what happened or whether there were disciplinary measures. A personnel matter, officials harrumphed. Not worth taking about, Sullivan said.

"Appropriate measures," he said, were taken.

The city slow-rolled myriad records requests. Then, its lawyers said disclosing them "is not required," holding up Anchorage Municipal Code, AMC 3.90.040, as one might hold up a cross to ward off vampires.

If the city's personnel rules allow officials to keep secret that the city's top cop was suspended without pay; if they cover up for a fire chief involved in whatever, something is very much amiss.

That secrecy leaves far too many questions. For instance: Why did the last police chief leave after a short term? And why are public documents — the Pennsylvania investigator's report and the one detailing the Hall episode — still secret.

Information in the city is pinched off in other ways, too. APD changed its radio frequencies so the public could not listen. I get that. It is an officer safety thing.

Hutchinson says until the change, APD was one of only two departments in the state that had not encrypted its radio calls. Juneau police now have the only publicly accessed radio traffic, he says. APD, instead, puts out bulletins when accidents and some crimes occur.

The department now controls information, sharing only what it wants us to know. Is it telling us everything? Who knows? It does not release daily arrest reports, commonly called the police blotter, because "major" media outlets in the city were not interested, Hutchinson says.

Those raw reports are available in virtually every department, in every other city, in the country. Why not here? Those reports, after all, are public documents — media interest, or no media interest — and, frankly, what helps separate a free society from a police state.

If the city's personnel rules — especially regarding its top officials — only make finding or obtaining public information even tougher for citizens — they need to be changed. If a police chief, for crying out loud, can be suspended in secret, something clearly is wrong.

Horribly wrong.

Paul Jenkins is editor of the AnchorageDailyPlanet.com a division of Porcaro Communications.

The views expressed here are the writer's and are not necessarily endorsed by Alaska Dispatch News, which welcomes a broad range of viewpoints. To submit a piece for consideration, email commentary@alaskadispatch.com. Send submissions shorter than 200 words to letters@alaskadispatch.com.