KFSK - Petersburg

Petersburg police have arrested two men in a six-figure fraud scheme against a senior in the Southeast Alaska town, after a sting operation last week with assistance from the FBI.

Court records show Shubham Patel, 24, and Harshilkumar Patel, 22, face felony state charges of scheme to defraud and first-degree theft in the case, involving losses of nearly $130,000. The men are unrelated citizens of India.

According to charging documents in the case, police got a report on June 2 that a resident had first been targeted in mid-May by phone scammers posing as federal officials. The victim told investigators that a fake Drug Enforcement Administration agent using the alias “Sean Watson” said her identity had been stolen, and convinced her to wire them nearly $80,000.

They then allegedly convinced her to hand-deliver an additional $50,000 in cash to a person posing as a government agent in Petersburg on May 20. Investigators later identified that person as a third suspect, who hasn’t yet been charged according to court records.

The victim was contacted by “Watson” again later and told to deliver an additional $60,000 cash to another “undercover agent,” according to the charges. Her family alerted local authorities, which arranged the sting operation.

Investigators said in the charges that they saw Shubham and Harshilkumar Patel arrive at the Petersburg airport on June 9 and scope the meeting place before redirecting the victim somewhere else.

Harshilkumar got the cash from the victim, and then law enforcement arrested both men.

According to investigators, Harshilkumar said he was recruited by Shubham shortly before traveling to Petersburg in June, but had reservations about being involved and claimed not to know the people giving him instructions for the exchange or what the money was for.

But the investigation found Shubham’s name connected to a May hotel stay in Petersburg with the third suspect, a U-Haul rental and thousands of dollars in gift cards and USPS money orders purchased locally in Petersburg.

Through a translator, the Patels heard their charges on Tuesday during a joint first-appearance hearing at the Petersburg Courthouse. They remain in custody in Juneau.

Petersburg Magistrate Judge Rachel Newport set Shubham’s bail at $300,000; he opted to find his own legal representation. Newport set Harshilkumar’s bail at $100,000 total, noting his alleged later involvement; he opted to have a public attorney assigned to his case. The public defender’s office in Juneau did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The victim didn’t wish to speak for the record during the hearing. She has asked not to be named publicly at this time.

The Patels’ next court appearance is scheduled for Friday in Petersburg.

Petersburg police said their investigation into the case is ongoing, with additional arrests possible. In a press release, the department credited the FBI, Ketchikan District Attorney’s Office, Juneau District Attorney’s Office and other agencies for their cooperation.

Resources for avoiding scams are available online from the FBI.

Researchers from an organization that seeks out extraterrestrial life camped out at a remote lighthouse in Southeast Alaska for the better part of the summer, but they weren’t out there looking for little green men.

They were there to look for — and listen to — the humpback whales that swarm the waters of Frederick Sound.

On a July voyage to Five Finger Lighthouse, skipper Josef Quitslund noticed something moving in the distance. He slowed down and cut the engine, then tossed a contraption that looks something like a baby monitor into the water.

The device — something called a hydrophone — picks up humpback whale sounds. Almost out of nowhere, several adult humpbacks rushed to the surface, mouths agape, scooping up a school of herring.

They were bubble-net feeding, a kind of cooperative hunting strategy where groups of whales get together to blow complex configurations of bubbles that allow them to trap their prey.

Quitslund’s wife, biologist Stephanie Hayes, pointed out a calf hanging back — rolling back and forth in a patch of kelp.

“He’s playing with kelp!” Hayes said, gesturing at the calf. “He’s giving himself a kelp bath!”

The whales finished their breakfast and the whale researchers continued on to the lighthouse, where premier whale behavioral scientist Fred Sharpe was helping coordinate Whale-SETI, a 15-year project spearheaded by the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute.

“Frederick Sound is this incredible solar-powered krill factory,” said Sharpe. “It brings whales — in some years, by the hundreds. And we’re a couple mountain ranges back from the open ocean, so we’re shielded from the ship noises.”

The team needs that relative quiet so they can listen carefully to the whales in the surrounding waters.

Sharpe and his team have been trying to crack the code of humpback whale communication for many years now, and he thinks they’re getting close. He’s part of a research group that “talked” to a female humpback whale named Twain by playing whale noises back to her with an underwater speaker.

“We had an event where we described a 20 minute interaction with a whale right up by the lighthouse, where we exchanged 36 signals back and forth: one of these ‘throp’ calls. Throp call is one of their basic social sounds that the humpback whales give,” Sharpe said. “The social sounds are kind of like …  sort of social chatter — a diverse set of social chatter, but shows some stability over time and space.”

Acoustic engineer Joe Olson was wearing an on-the-nose Star Trek sweatshirt.

He said encounters like the one with Twain might inch us closer to understanding extraterrestrial intelligence. But he said they can’t approach the experiment like they’re trying to learn a language on human terms.

“We only see what we’re looking for,” said Olson. “And so, with the communication of the humpbacks, we’re only going to figure out what it is that we’re looking for, right? It’s the same with aliens. For all we know, there’s aliens sending neutrino signals. But… we have no way to manipulate neutrinos. And they may have been beaming things out as saying: ‘Hey, look, look, look!’”

Another group of SETI researchers were scheduled to arrive at the lighthouse in just a couple of days, and Sharpe’s team had much to do to prepare.

They set up hydrophones on almost every corner of the island. But those devices weren’t just picking up whale noises, as Olson explained on a cliff where he had installed a hydrophone.

“We’re just hearing bivalves over here. Stuff that’s stuck to the walls … barnacles, mussels, whatever,” Olson said, before giving his best bivalve imitation.

Lighthouse keeper Don Merrill has watched this team of scientists scurry around his home with strange equipment for several days now. On the alien question: he’s got his doubts.

“Do you want it from a religious standpoint, or from a metaphysical standpoint?” asked Merrill. “When you’re bringing up aliens, I am quite a skeptic.”

But his face lit up when asked how he feels about the hydrophone speakers strewn across his house.

“That’s cool,” said Merrill. “I come out here sometimes and I’ll just turn the sound up, just because I want to know what’s going on. I grew up on the ocean, [as a] fishermen. I had no idea that was that much sound down there. That is a wild place! … It’s really opened my eyes.”

Inspiring that kind of excitement is part of what the group is aiming for with this project. Olson said by holding up the possibility of communicating with animals, they can get people to care about them.

“When we see something that we understand or we love or we connect with, we’re more likely to try to protect them or to respect them,” he said. “And who knows, maybe we’ll crack the code, right? If there’s a code to be cracked, maybe Fred will be the one to crack that code.”

They’re not quite there yet. But at the end of the summer research session, Sharpe said he’s happy with the diversity of noises and behaviors they added to their repertoire. He said he’s excited to continue attempting to translate humpback whale language to make us feel a little less alone on the planet — if not the universe.

Over 150 years have passed since the U.S. Navy bombed Kake, a Tlingit village in Southeast Alaska. Navy representatives visited this weekend to formally apologize for the winter attack, which left many people to starve or die of exposure after the village was destroyed.

At Kake’s community center on Saturday, about a dozen elders walked or were wheeled to the front of the crowd, where they saluted the American flag as a Navy musician sang the Star-Spangled Banner. The men wore Tlingit button vests and blankets over their shoulders, and veterans’ caps on their heads denoting the military branch and foreign wars they served in — Korea, Vietnam, Iraq.

Joel Jackson is the president of Kake’s tribe, called the Organized Village of Kake. He said he couldn’t help but point out the irony.

“Our veterans have been in every major conflict,” Jackson said. “Even though they took our land, our men still went and fought for their country. I’m very proud of them for their service.”

To Jackson’s right, a totem pole, carved by local artist Rob Mills, stood behind the American flag. Half of the pole was blackened by fire, to represent the centuries of colonial violence endured by the Tlingit people.

Jackson said the Navy’s apology was a long time coming.

“I talked to a lawyer, and he said the military will never apologize or offer restitution for what they have done,” said Jackson. “I’m glad it’s happening in my lifetime.”

‘Wrongful military activity’

The attack took place in January of 1869 — in the dead of winter.

The year before, American soldiers had attacked a Chilkat leader, Colchika, who left the fight with one of their rifles. Soon after, an army sentinel shot and killed two Kake Tlingit people who were trying to leave Sitka by canoe. The group’s lone survivor, a clan leader, asked the army garrison for compensation for their deaths. Gen. Jefferson C. Davis refused.

About a month later, in retribution, a party of Kake Tlingit people killed two white trappers on Admiralty Island. Jackson says they were acting in accordance with Tlingit law.

When Davis learned of those killings, he ordered the USS Saginaw to attack Kake. The warship’s crew found the village mostly empty, but they burned and bombed it to the ground — destroying homes, food caches, canoes, and totem poles.

The bombing left the people of Kake without food or shelter. Though historians haven’t determined the number of deaths, oral history records many — especially among elders and children.

In its apology, the Navy called the attack “wrongful military activity.” But Jackson calls it part of a series of acts of genocide. 

“It basically is still in our DNA today,” said Jackson. “Because it wasn’t just a bombardment, it was the boarding schools and all the pandemics that we had back then. Trying to erase our people from this land.”

‘The beginning of a dialogue’

U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski, who is an adopted member of the Tlingit Deisheetaan clan, spoke at the ceremony. She said she hopes the Navy’s apology will promote healing.

“At some moment, there has to be the time that the healing can begin, and that moment needs to be now,” she said. “It is my hope that we can move together forward with respect and understanding for each other’s cultures, for each other’s worldviews, and that with these words of apology, respect is finally afforded to the people of Kake.”

Rear Admiral Mark Sucato stepped up to the podium and said the Navy regrets how long it took to apologize.

“The Tlingit people of Kake did not deserve the destruction of their villages by U.S. Naval forces,” he said. “We are invested in supporting Kake’s healing. This is the beginning of a dialogue towards making amends.”

Jackson, the tribal president, didn’t accept the apology outright. Instead, he turned to the clan leaders at the gathering.

“You all heard the apology — What do you think?” Joel asked. “You don’t have to answer, but as the tribal president, I believe we should acknowledge the apology and move forward.”

Some clan leaders then shared stories from their ancestors who survived the attack. Others thanked the visitors for the apology, which the tribe ultimately accepted.

But the Navy’s work isn’t over. Now they’re speaking with Wrangell and Angoon’s tribes to apologize to clans that also suffered in the series of attacks. Those ceremonies will take place later this fall.

KTOO 360TV will air the U.S. Navy’s apology for the Kake bombardment on Sunday, Sept. 29 at 12:30 p.m. 

Correction: A photo caption previously misidentified the year when the bombardment took place. 

A group of quakers from Oregon visited Kake last month for the annual Dog Salmon Festival. The visit to the remote Southeast Alaska village was part of an ongoing effort to apologize for the religious group’s participation in the forced assimilation of the Tlingit people. They were there to return an assortment of cultural artifacts that had been taken out of Kake over a century ago.

Baby booties, wooden paddles, blankets, a small household totem — these are some of the cultural artifacts a group of quakers returned to Kake from Portland, Oregon this summer. But according to Juulie Downs, who was part of the group who went to Kake, some items were easier to transport than others.

“Oh, a set of canoe paddles — gorgeous, absolutely gorgeous! And really hard to get through TSA,” Downs said, laughing.

“I wanted to carry them on board, because I wanted to be careful,” said Downs. “But TSA said, ‘Oh, no, you’re going to have to go back and check them, because they could be used as a weapon. You know, you could whack somebody with them!’ [And so I said,] ‘Yeah, okay, whatever.’”

Many of them had been passed down through Downs’ family, through her great-grandmother, Bell Gardner, who taught at the quaker school in Kake around the turn of the century. It was a day school where the kids went home at night.

Downs said bringing those pieces back was just the right thing to do, as a step towards repairing the harm of the forced assimilation of Alaska Native people. But in letting go of the items that had been with her family for three generations, she also learned something about them.

“There was one thing I could never figure out,” said Downs. “I couldn’t see what it could possibly be for — it made absolutely no sense of any kind. It’s a pouch with a handle. I asked somebody, I said, ‘Do you know what this is?’ And she looked at it, and she picked it up and she handled it. She [said] it was a medicine bag. So it was important!”

Joel Jackson is the president of Kake’s tribe, the Organized Village of Kake. He said the gesture meant a great deal to the community. But, that Kake is still recovering from colonization. He said many of the community’s elders, who went to the quaker day school, don’t like to talk about their experiences there.

“I don’t know if they’re embarrassed or [if] they just feel that it’s something they want to put behind them,” said Jackson. “But the main thing I expressed about that school was the forced assimilation of our people into the Western world. And that’s what lot of people across Alaska, in the United States, you know, they feel that, you know … They were forced into going to school and following the Western ways, and they were forbidden to speak their language. “

The return of the objects was preceded by a formal apology in January. S’eiltin Jamiann Hasselquist is an Indigenous activist from Angoon. She was there to witness the apology as a descendant of a person from Kake, and said it wasn’t just a blanket apology for operating the day school.

“They talk about the horrific abuse conditions, the taking of culture, the sexual abuse,” said Hasselquist. “They speak of the things that happened in their apology, which is exactly how an apology should be when coming to make apologies to Indigenous people. It shouldn’t be vague. Because we know what happens to us. And apologies without reparations are just words that fall to the ground.”

Downs said it was hard for her to confront that part of her family’s history. She remembers her great grandmother as a gentle, kind person, and doubts that she participated in the worst of the abuse. But, she said it was ultimately necessary to reconcile her views of the world with what Bell Gardner, who she calls “Nana,” participated in.

“It it just struck me … still not connecting it to Nana at that point,” Downs said. “But just realizing that we, as white people, have often not really understood other people’s religions.”

Then, one day, when she was putting on a scrimshaw pin that her great grandmother had brought down from Kake, she said it hit her “like a ton of bricks.”

“I was getting dressed, I thought, well, I’m going to wear that pin,” said Downs. “And then I went: ‘Ah!’”

Downs was getting ready for a meeting, where Hasselquist was speaking about the lasting harm missions and boarding schools had brought upon Indigenous people across North America.

“I got up and said that there was this pin that came down in my family, and [then I] gave it to this woman that had been speaking,” said Downs. “And I’m telling you, there wasn’t a dry eye in the whole room. Quakers have a kind of a concept that sometimes in a group there’s a heaviness of the Holy Spirit comes down and just enshrouds everybody, like in a cloud. It was like that.”

Cathy Walling is with another quaker group: the Alaska Friends Conference. She helped organize the reconciliation effort — including the return of the artifacts. She says she didn’t want the apology to be an empty, self-congratulatory gesture.

She said that’s why the group put up over $92,000 to cover the insurance costs for the village’s healing center, which is in the works. Walling says she hopes this act inspires other organizations with histories of colonization to take similar reparative steps.

“I’m hoping this story just helps to uplift the importance of apology,” said Walling, “for healing journeys, [and] for, you know, really — how we move forward in good ways together, towards greater healing that moves us towards transformation on our planet. Because, boy do we need it. Boy, do we need it.”

Jackson says the return of the artifacts represents a step towards healing intergenerational trauma brought about by colonization, and that the monetary contribution to his brainchild — the community’s cultural healing center — made the gesture even more meaningful.

“We’ve been talking about this intergenerational trauma for … how long now?” said Jackson. “And I think it’s time that we start healing our people. I’ve had the cultural healing center in mind for … I don’t know how long. Quite a while. It came to me after I lost two of my brothers to alcohol.”

As for Downs? She says that she’s only a little bit sad to part with some of the items, which made her feel connected to all the hands they had passed through — those of her mother and grandmothers. But she says she knows it was ultimately the right thing to do, and that she hopes she traded in the artifacts for lasting friendship with the people of Kake.

Southeast Alaska has almost a full week of sunshine ahead, but those blue skies will be slightly dingy with smoke from wildfires in Canada.

Numerous fires are burning across British Columbia, the Northwest Territories, the Yukon and even as far away as Alberta. And they’re producing just enough smoke to start hazing up the skies in the panhandle — especially in the southern half, which contains Petersburg, Wrangell, and Ketchikan.

But Brian Bezenek, the lead meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Juneau, says it’s nothing for Southeast Alaskans to worry about. A slight haze may be the worst of it — at least for now.

“If it persists for a long time, it may become an issue,” says Bezenek. “But right now, I think it’s more of just a high, thin layer of smoke coming in. Mainly what you’re seeing is the high particles — and unless you’re smelling the smoke, you’re probably not seeing a whole lot at the lower levels.

That’s all to say that Bezenek doesn’t expect that the smoke will affect air travel or inconvenience people in vulnerable groups — like the elderly, children, or those with certain medical conditions.

He says it’s still possible that Southeast Alaskans might get to enjoy a few smokeless and cloudless skies before the rains return. Bezenek predicts that the wave of smoke should abate after a big low pushes it out of the way before the weekend.