Public Safety

The Alaska Department of Corrections has reported 18 people have died in custody of the state’s prisons and jails so far this year – on par with the state’s highest death count in 2022. Advocates and lawmakers say the number is “devastating” and “preventable,” and are calling for the reinstatement of an independent oversight body to investigate.

The count now brings the total in-custody deaths reported by DOC since 2020 to 84, an increasing number in recent years with at least 15 deaths reported in 2024 and 10 deaths in 2023.

“It’s devastating, it’s preventable, and it’s unacceptable that there haven’t been any changes made to reduce deaths in custody,” said Megan Edge, director of integrated justice with the ACLU of Alaska in an interview.

DOC officials, through a spokesperson, declined to comment on the number of the deaths.

The ACLU is calling for the reinstatement of an independent oversight body to investigate the circumstances of in-custody deaths and reduce risks, Edge said.

The state created a special internal investigative unit in DOC in 2016, following a 2015 report that widespread failures and dysfunction within the system led to at least six in-custody deaths. But the unit was dissolved in 2018 during budget cuts under the Dunleavy administration.

Betsy Holley, a spokesperson for DOC, declined an interview but said by email Wednesday that the agency has no plans to resurrect that unit.

“The unit was eliminated, reducing duplicative functions, reducing costs and moving to a more transparent investigative process,” she said.

The Alaska State Troopers, with the Alaska Department of Public Safety, investigate death incidents, not DOC, she said. “DPS is the investigative agency assigned to review incidents and because they are not affiliated with DOC, investigations are conducted independently, ensuring neutrality and objectivity,” Holley said.

Rep. Andrew Gray, D-Anchorage, and chair of the House Judiciary Committee, said he will look into the process of creating such a system in the next legislative session. He said it should be external and independent from DOC. “There’s just no doubt that the way we currently have it, which is that there’s not really any organized official oversight happening, it’s just unacceptable,” he said.

Gray said he would like to see an independent unit created to investigate DOC deaths, so that details and reports can be verified, and best practices are in use.

“We can’t verify that they are following the correct protocols, that there are ways of reporting warning signs, or assessing folks who are at risk. We have no way of knowing,” he said. “And when we have a death toll that’s high, we have a right to question if there are mistakes being made, and we are questioning whether mistakes have been made.”

The ACLU is also calling for changes in Alaska law to allow more people who are elderly and with terminal illnesses to be released on medical and geriatric parole, which Gray said his office would be pursuing in the next legislative session starting in January.

At least 18 reported deaths by DOC in 2025, one more by the ACLU

Most recently, DOC reported the death of Kane Huff, 46, on Dec. 15 in Goose Creek Correctional Center, bringing the state’s total in-custody deaths for this year to 18 people.

DOC releases limited information on the causes and circumstances around in-custody deaths. But the department included a note when it announced eight of this year’s deaths — nearly half of them, including Kane’s — saying in the case of an “expected death” the Alaska State Troopers and State Medical Examiner’s office are notified. That office determines the cause of death.

Alaska’s prison population is aging, with an estimated 21% being 55 and older, according to DOC data. DOC officials testified to the Alaska State Legislature earlier this year that more in custody deaths were due to “natural causes,” including acute and chronic disease and illness — or 68% of deaths since 2016.

Over half of this year’s in-custody deaths, or ten people, were over the age of 60. The oldest was Keith Landers, at 94 years old, who died on Nov. 24, and the youngest was Christopher Ligons, 30 years old who died on June 28.

At least four of the deaths have been ruled suicides, according to Alaska State Troopers, news reports and investigation by the ACLU of Alaska. One was Aaron Merritt, who died on Nov. 26 and was a Kenai church member, as reported by KDLL Public Radio.

Seven people died this year while under arrest and awaiting trial – one person in custody for less than a day – and two people were convicted and awaiting sentencing.

At least two in-custody deaths followed violent altercations. Jeffrey Foreman, 53, died on Jul. 11 after being restrained by correctional officers after a fight with a cellmate in the Anchorage Correctional Complex, according to Alaska Public Media.

Not on the DOC list this year is William Farmer, 36, who died in an Anchorage hospital on Jan. 6, after an assault by a cellmate in the Anchorage Correctional Complex. The case involved mental health issues and DOC failed to release the cellmate who was found incompetent to stand trial. Both families have questioned why the two men were placed in the same cell, according to reporting by the Anchorage Daily News.

DOC has said the case was not reported as an in-custody death because Farmer was released on bail after he was hospitalized. The ACLU has criticized DOC for a pattern of releasing inmates who are hospitalized or dying.

DOC attributes more deaths to natural causes

DOC medical and correctional officials testified to the Legislature earlier this year that more in-custody deaths were due to natural causes, like chronic disease and illness, whereas in previous years more deaths were attributed to drug overdoses.

Alaska’s Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Robert Lawrence, who previously served as the chief medical officer for DOC from 2013 to 2024, said in an interview last year that the state’s inmate population has higher needs for care than the state’s population as a whole.

“Prisons are not just warehouses where we put people. These are neighborhoods within the larger community. And one of the things that we recognize about this unique neighborhood that is a correctional institution is that it tends to have a concentrating effect, meaning that any of the issues that we’re dealing with in the community get concentrated within this prison environment,” he said.

ACLU’s Edge said the increasing physical and mental health care needs of inmates is well known, and DOC should be doing more to provide adequate care.

“It’s not new and is not unique. People in prison are some of the often sickest people in our society and in Alaska especially, because we have such limited resources for physical and mental health care and substance use treatment,” Edge said. “Often the response in our communities is to incarcerate people. If people are homeless, they are taken to jail. People with mental illness are often put in jail. People experiencing substance use disorder are put in jail.”

She pointed to the state of Alaska’s legal obligation to provide people with health care while they’re in custody, including access to mental health care resources and treatment.

“We hear stories from people who are experiencing suicidal ideation and thrown into solitary confinement, stripped of their clothing and placed in a suicide smock till they say they feel better,” she said. “That’s not mental health care.”

On average, 4,500 people are incarcerated in Alaska’s jails and prisons each year, either awaiting trial or sentencing, or serving criminal sentences. That average population has been steady over the last decade. Edge pointed out that the death rate is growing, while the overall population is not.

“Our death numbers continue to rise and stay disproportionately high for the amount of people that we actually have incarcerated,” she said.

Deaths prompt legal action

The ACLU filed a federal class-action lawsuit in May challenging DOC’s health care system as inadequate and inhumane, which includes an investigation and documentation of a variety of cases where inmates’ failed to be treated, resulting in deteriorating health conditions.

The civil rights group is also part of two wrongful death lawsuits, one for Lewis Jordan Jr. who suffered an untreated ear infection while incarcerated at Goose Creek Correctional Center in 2023 that developed into fatal meningitis.

The lawsuit claims “deliberate indifference” from DOC, and that Jordan’s death was preventable. The families of James Rider and Mark Cook Jr., who died in pretrial custody in 2022 and 2023, have also filed lawsuits seeking restitution and damages.

Expanding opportunities for medical and geriatric parole

For the elderly and those with severe or terminal illnesses, Gray said he would like to see Alaska move toward a compassionate release program, which would also be a cost saving measure for the state.

“I think people kind of know this intuitively. Folks in their sixties and seventies need to see the doctor more than folks in their twenties and thirties, and so if we’re incarcerating a large population of folks who are older, they’re going to require a lot more health care, and that health care is more expensive,” Gray said.

The cost to the state for incarceration is estimated to be $202 per person per day in Alaska, compared to an estimated $13 per day on parole.

“It is extraordinarily expensive. We cannot afford to be running basically nursing homes in our prisons,” Gray said. “We have a mechanism in Alaska for those folks who are very, very, very unlikely to be able to commit any more crimes, let’s get them out of our system. Let’s get them back to their families.”

Alaska has a special medical and geriatric parole to release those who are elderly and with a terminal illness, and have been found to no longer pose a risk to the public.

But that system is not currently being used – the Alaska Parole Board has not granted anyone medical or geriatric release in the last five years, since 2020.

Edge said due to restrictions in the current law for those convicted of unclassified felonies – like first-degree murder and sexual assault – people may not be eligible for parole. It would require the legislature to take action to change the law.

“So it’s really inaccessible for the people that actually need it,” Edge said. “I’m thinking of one person in particular who was wheelchair bound, blind and in his eighties. And his family, his children, had a plan to take care of him, and he could not get out. He was denied discretionary parole, and was ineligible for geriatric and special medical parole because he was convicted of an unclassified felony.”

Deaths reported by DOC in 2025:

Pedro George Rubke, 78

Reginald Eugene Childers, Jr., 42

Nathaniel David Leask, 49

Marcias Zoritas Reinhold, 83

Lena Lola Lynn, 63

Alvin Lynn Archa Jr., 62

Carl K Thompson, 68

Christopher Ligons, 30

Jeffrey Daniel Foreman, 53

Mattfi Abruska, 78

Robert Ahvik, 62

Joshua Paul Keeling, 35

Kurt Charles Malutin, 37

Barry John McCormack, 74

Donald Scott Hotch Sr., 78

Keith Landers, 93

Aaron Scott Merritt, 45

Kane William Huff, 46

A civil lawsuit aimed at preserving a historic neighborhood in the capital city is set for trial next summer. Juneau’s city government, meanwhile, plans to demolish the neighborhood before then.

At a hearing on Wednesday, Superior Court Judge Amanda Browning set the trial date for August 2026. Three longtime tenants of the city-owned Telephone Hill neighborhood filed the lawsuit in October. It seeks to both stop the city’s demolition and reverse the evictions of renters. 

City Attorney Emily Wright said, as it stands legally, nothing is holding the city back from continuing with demolition. 

“There’s nothing stopping forward movement,” she said. “Right now, the timeline that the city manager’s office is working on is a March demo.”

After years of public debate, the Juneau Assembly approved demolishing the homes on the hill this spring to redevelop the area into newer, denser housing. The Assembly says the plan is necessary to address Juneau’s lack of housing. 

But, the tenants’ lawsuit claims that the city improperly evicted people on the hill, illegally phased the redevelopment and the project fails to comply with federal and state historic preservation acts. The city has repeatedly denied these claims.

Following Wednesday’s hearing, the tenants’ attorney, Fred Triem, said he intends to file a motion to prevent the demolition pending the outcome of the August trial. Judge Browning will decide whether to accept or deny it. 

“We want to save the old buildings — that’s the object of the suit,” he said. “We will move forward in the court system with our efforts to protect the buildings while we await the trial presently scheduled for August.”

At the hearing, Judge Browning also ruled on a couple of the eviction cases the city filed against remaining tenants who refused to vacate by the city’s Nov. 1 deadline. While Browning ruled in favor of the city’s right to evict two residences, she gave different eviction deadlines to the tenants because of their personal circumstances. A third eviction case is still pending. 

With Juneau expecting to see temperatures in the single digits and even below zero this week, residents may be tempted to recreate on frozen lakes around town. 

KTOO spoke with Juneau Fire Chief Rich Etheridge about a recent incident of someone falling through the ice, what to do if it happens, and other safety precautions when venturing out on frozen bodies of water. 

Listen:

This audio has been lightly edited for clarity and length.

Mike Lane: Welcome, Chief. Thanks for coming in. 

Chief Etheridge: Thanks for having me this morning. 

Mike Lane: We understand that somebody went through the ice on Mendenhall Lake recently. Can you describe what happened or how CCFR was involved?

Chief Etheridge: Sure, I can let you know our involvement. The person was out on the ice, recreating, doing their own thing. While they were doing that, we were busy taking care of an apartment fire out in the valley. And just as we were wrapping up and clearing from that incident, dispatch said that there was a person in the parking lot that had fallen through the ice, had hypothermia and needed some medical care. So JPD went racing out there to get them in a warm vehicle to get things going, and then our folks showed up in the ambulance to start the rewarming process and getting them taken care of and get them up to Bartlett to go get checked out. 

Mike Lane: That rewarming process, what does that entail?

Chief Etheridge: Usually, it’s cranking up the heat in the back of the ambulance, warm blankets. You know, if they’re extremely hypothermic, we can do warm IVs to start getting some warm fluids in their blood and then getting them up to the hospital where they can do a lot more, like a lavage and put warm fluids through their stomach, things like that. The trick is, is to to warm them up controlled so that you don’t put their body in more shock, because they’re pretty fragile at that point. 

Mike Lane: When someone does fall through the ice on Mendenhall Lake, or any other lake for that matter, what is CCFR’s typical response?

Chief Etheridge: Especially Mendenhall Lake, it takes about 20-25 minutes for people to get from Glacier station to the lake on their suits and headed out onto the ice. 

Mike Lane: What precautions do they take as responders to not fall through the ice as well?

Chief Etheridge: We’ve got a couple of things, if the ice thickness is sufficient, we’ve got some four wheelers on great big tracks for getting out there as quick as we can. But they wear ice rescue suits. They’re like a big Gumby suit that insulates them and they’re buoyant and protects them from the temperature, so if they do go through the ice, you know, they’ve got quite a bit of time to self-rescue or have their partner rescue them. And we practice that every year. We go cut holes in some of the local ponds, or out of the float pond at the airport, and people jump in and practice getting rescued.

Mike Lane: What makes Mendenhall Lake particularly unsafe to go out on when it’s frozen?

Chief Etheridge: Sure, Mendenhall Lake’s really unpredictable. There’s a lot of currents, especially with Nugget Falls pouring into the lake, you get a lot of currents in there. And so any place you have moving water, you’re gonna have shallow, thin, thin areas of ice. And then also the icebergs, they act kind of like a heat sink, and so the areas right around the icebergs tend not to freeze as thick, and you can still have an iceberg roll in the wintertime and break the ice around it.

Mike Lane: Now, are there any lakes in Juneau that are okay to go out on when it’s frozen?

Chief Etheridge: You know, there’s some that I feel are safer than others. You know, if you go to like like Twin Lakes, you’re at least visible, you know, and you don’t have the currents flowing through it that you do in other places. You know, the duck pond out off Riverside Drive. Places where you’re more visible, you’ve got less travel distance to get to someplace warm, I think is a good thing to look for.

Mike Lane: How could a person determine whether the lake ice is safe to walk or skate or bike on, or or snow machine, whatever it might be?

Chief Etheridge: Sure, the rule of thumb I’ve always heard is, you know, four inches for people to be safe out on the ice. But I’m a big old chicken, so I like at least a good foot out there before I go out.

Mike Lane: And what warning signs should people look for before going on a frozen body of water?

Chief Etheridge: Look at the areas along the shore, you know, do those break up? You know, do you have the ability to kind of drill through the ice and, you know, with, like, a hand drill and see how thick it is? 

Mike Lane: Now, if someone were to venture out onto a frozen lake but wanted to bring proper safety equipment, what would that be?

Chief Etheridge: You know, a PFD is not a bad idea. Ropes, you know, long poles that you know, if you do go through the ice, you got something to hang on to, to help pull you up out of the area, but you really only have a few minutes to do anything significant. Once you hit that water, it’s so bitter cold that your hands go numb really fast. And getting out is extremely important. You lose the feeling and gross motor functions pretty quickly.

Mike Lane: What if I witnessed somebody go through the ice? What would I do as a witness or a bystander?

Chief Etheridge: Sure, first thing is to call 911, because that response time does take time , keep an eye on where they were at if you’ve seen them, and if you’ve got equipment that you can safely, you know, attempt to help, help them get out of the ice, you could do so, whether you’ve got a rope you can throw them, or things like that, a sled you can scoot out to them, but going up to the area where they just fell through is kind of a bad idea.

Alaska State Troopers said in a bulletin Monday that Dr. Ryan McDonough died in a weekend fire at his home in Wasilla.

At the time of the fire, McDonough — a cardiologist formerly with Mat-Su Regional Medical Center — was on $50,000 bail after being arrested on Dec. 11 and accused of owning child sexual abuse images.

The alleged crimes, and the bail posted by McDonough’s wife, were reported by the Anchorage Daily News on Friday, a day after the medical center fired him.

The fatal fire at McDonough’s home took place Saturday; McDonough was initially listed as missing after the fire, but firefighters found human remains at the site, and preliminary testing later identified McDonough’s body.

The cause of the fire remains under investigation, and the other people who lived at the home were unharmed.

Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy appointed McDonough to the state medical board in August. That month, he joined other members of the medical board in voting to impose restrictions on medical care for transgender youth in the state and to recommend that Alaska lawmakers end legal access to abortion in the late stages of pregnancy.

McDonough subsequently appeared to drop off the board; he attended its August and September meetings but was absent from its October and November ones, public records show.

Because of absences and unfilled seats, the board — which regulates doctors and other medical professionals in Alaska — has had problems finding a quorum needed to do business.

McDonough’s name was removed from the board’s roster in November. A spokesperson for Dunleavy told the Anchorage Daily News that the governor’s office found out about McDonough’s alleged crimes on Friday and was not aware of any investigations at the time of his appointment.

According to an affidavit submitted in Palmer courts by a Department of Homeland Security officer, the online file storage company Dropbox sent a tip to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children on July 31.

That tip led to the investigation of a Dropbox account linked to McDonough that contained a video of a child being sexually abused. A second tip followed another video on Aug. 10.

The Anchorage Police Department, in charge of investigating tips like those received by the National Center, obtained a search warrant for McDonough’s Dropbox, GCI and Google accounts. Subsequent searches found additional suspect videos, and McDonough’s computer was seized during a search warrant on Dec. 11, shortly before his arrest.

The Alaska Beacon typically publishes copies of court affidavits but is not doing so in this case because of their graphic contents and because they describe acts of sexual violence against children.

McDonough’s next court appearance was scheduled for Jan. 31.

Listen to this story:

Officials say to be prepared as Juneau is expected to see frigid temperatures this week and stretching into the next couple of weeks.

The National Weather Service issued a cold weather advisory and a high wind warning starting Thursday evening.  

The forecast shows that a Taku wind event could start as early as Thursday evening. The strongest gusts of 60 miles per hour or more are predicted to blow Saturday. Wind chill temperatures could reach as low as negative 15 degrees Fahrenheit. Without wind chill, temperatures are expected to range from the teens to negative 3 degrees Fahrenheit through Monday.

“We could see some periods, especially where we have the higher winds, that frostbite is going to be a real danger, and that’s where dressing in layers, covering up is important,” said Jeff Garmon, the meteorologist in charge at the National Weather Service in Juneau.

He said the wind could also whip up freezing ocean spray, which can cover boats in ice and make maritime travel dangerous.

Garmon said this December is on track to break weather records.

“It’s looking like the numbers are shaping up for this to be the coldest we’ve seen in over 30 years in Southeast Alaska,” he said. “It’s a little unusual to go through like a two to almost three week period and be as cold as we are.”

Garmon said cold snaps in Juneau typically last just a few days, instead of weeks. He said this one is caused by a consistent flow of strong polar air moving in from interior Alaska and Canada.

Some locals might have seen a social media post from the NOAA NWS Climate Prediction Center warning that dangerous temperatures as low as negative 40 could hit Southeast later this month and into January. The post has been deleted, and Garmon said it looks like it was an error.

“I think what happened there was somebody in Washington (D.C.) got their wires crossed,” he said.

Garmon said such low, arctic temperatures are unlikely in most of Southeast. But he said that farther north — in exposed, high elevation spots like the Klondike Highway — it’s possible to see wind chill temperatures even lower.

The National Weather Service’s extreme cold warning for Skagway and White Pass says wind chill temperatures as low as negative 50 degrees Fahrenheit are expected. But Garmon said areas near sea level would probably see somewhere around negative 10 at the coldest.

In dangerous conditions, officials say it’s important to be prepared in case utilities fail. There’s been a string of power outages in Juneau this month.

Ryan O’Shaughnessy, the emergency programs manager for the City and Borough of Juneau, said to stock up on non-perishable foods, drinking water, blankets, flashlights and batteries in case the power goes out.

“It’s really important to be careful using candles for light and to heat your home — that can pretty quickly turn into a fire hazard,” he said.

To prevent pipes from freezing and bursting, he said to keep taps dripping. And he suggests keeping extra blankets and warm clothes in the car, in case it breaks down.

O’Shaughnessy urges residents to sign up for the city’s emergency alerts. He said just under 3,000 people are signed up.

Vulnerable populations will be the most susceptible to harsh conditions. Juneau’s emergency warming shelter in Thane is open each night. Transportation is available to the Glory Hall, Juneau’s homeless shelter, which offers meals and allows people to stay warm during the day.

The city is asking those with boats docked at the harbors to check and make sure everything is secure and working properly.

Garmon said a possible snowstorm could come through Juneau around Christmas and may bring warmer, maritime air that could pull temperatures out of the negatives. But he said it’s still too far out to be confident.

A federal grand jury has indicted two Alaska State Troopers shown on body-camera video beating, tasing and pepper-spraying a Kenai man in a case of mistaken identity.

Former Trooper Sgt. Joseph Miller and Jason Woodruff are each charged with violating the man’s civil rights. Neither were arrested following the federal indictment.

In a news release, the U.S. Attorney’s office says 50-year-old Miller had no legal justification for the violent arrest. Prosecutors say 43-year-old Woodruff illegally used his police dog to bite the man when he did not pose a threat. The arrest was captured on body cameras. The state brought charges against Miller and Woodruff last summer after a routine use-of-force review.

State prosecutors say body camera footage shows Woodruff and Miller tasing, pepper-spraying, beating and having their police dog maul Kenai man Ben Tikka during an arrest at Kenai’s Daubenspeck Park. The state charging document says troopers did not ask for Tikka’s name during the arrest, and did not learn until later that the man they’d arrested was Ben, and not his cousin, Garrett.

Garrett had an outstanding warrant for failing to appear for a 10-day jail sentence for driving with a revoked license.

The lawyer representing Ben Tikka in the state case says he underwent more than $40,000 worth of medical procedures as a result of the arrest, which left him with a concussion and a broken clavicle.

Miller is no longer employed by the State of Alaska. Jason Woodruff remains employed by the department but has been on leave since the botched arrest. The union contract that covers public safety employees says employees charged with a crime over professional conduct will be put on unpaid leave. The police dog involved in the arrest was also released from the department.

If convicted in the federal case, Miller and Woodruff each face up to 10 years in prison.

James Cockrell is the commissioner of the Alaska Department of Public Safety. He was quick to condemn Miller and Woodruff’s conduct after reviewing the body-worn camera footage last year. In a statement to KDLL, Cockrell called the alleged civil rights violations deeply concerning and contrary to the department’s values.

“While this is an unfortunate day for the Alaska State Troopers, the alleged actions of these two individuals do not reflect the professionalism of the hundreds of State Troopers and DPS employees who serve Alaskans with integrity every day, often in the most challenging conditions in the United States,” he said.

Cockrell said the department continues to cooperate with state and federal prosecutors. A spokesperson for the Alaska U.S. Attorney’s office said she was not aware of any prior instances in which an Alaska State Trooper faced federal charges as a result of their conduct on duty.

Woodruff’s attorney declined to discuss the case. Miller’s did not respond to a request for comment.

Tuesday’s announcement comes as Woodruff and Miller await trial in their respective state criminal cases. They are each facing first-degree assault charges. In September, a judge declined a request from Miller to dismiss the state’s case against him. Miller and Woodruff are scheduled to go to trial next year.