Public Safety

Bad weather has halted a search for a 41-year-old mountaineer who remains missing after falling Monday off the West Buttress of Denali.

National Park Service spokesperson Amber Smigiel said a ground search was called off Tuesday after heavy winds and snow set in on the mountain, recently renamed Mount McKinley by President Trump. She said rangers are monitoring conditions every hour in hopes the weather will break so they can restart the search.

“It’s windy and snowing in the area, so we have not been able to send out either ground or aerial crews,” Smigiel said. “So everyone’s on standby, waiting for the weather to clear.”

Smigiel said three ski mountaineers set out on an expedition Monday to ascend the peak. She said when they reached the 12,000-foot level later in the afternoon, two of the mountaineers saw the third member fall at a spot along the trail called Squirrel Point. They said he fell towards the rocky, 3,000-foot face of Peters Glacier.

“But we don’t know how far he fell,” she said. “There was no visual confirmation from the other members of his team as to where he landed.”

According to a Park Service news release, the two remaining expedition members lowered themselves over the edge of the West Buttress as far as possible, but were unable to see or hear the missing mountaineer. So they descended the route to seek additional help, and on Tuesday afternoon were at Camp 1, where they were being treated and evaluated by a ranger team.

Smiegel declined to identify the missing mountaineer, but said he’s a Washington resident. None of the three expedition members were roped together, a precaution the Park Service highly recommends when climbing the mountain.

Smigiel said the Park Service hopes to resume ground and air search Wednesday. Search efforts remained suspended for the morning, she said.

KTNA’s Andrew Gelderman contributed information to this story.

An Anchorage woman has been charged with neglecting more than 70 dogs, in a case that strained local animal-care resources and prompted a massive outpouring of community support to adopt the animals.

Court records show Monika Marshall, 47, charged with 73 misdemeanor counts of animal neglect. Anchorage police described the situation on Facebook as “one of the most severe neglect cases we’ve encountered.” It involved a total of 71 dogs and two birds.

Marshall could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

But a charging document against her lays out what authorities say happened. According to the charges, police and Anchorage Animal Care and Control officers visited her Abbott Loop home on May 22 in response to a report of animal neglect. They reported a “strong smell of urine emanating from the house.”

“Upon entering the residence the smell of urine and feces greatly intensified, and officers observed urine and feces present on every wall, and were forced to return to the residence with gas masks due to the overwhelming odor,” prosecutors said in the charges.

Inside, officers reported finding “a large number of dogs roaming freely,” which made moving through the home’s first floor difficult due to their sheer numbers.

“Officers observed even more surging out of cramped and unsanitary spaces,” prosecutors said.

All 73 dogs and birds were removed from the home, according to the charges, and Marshall was briefly arrested.

Animal Care and Control described it as a “hoarding case” on Facebook. A day after the dogs were seized, police posted a plea for help online.

“The animals were found in unimaginable conditions,” police said. “While neglect charges are pending, the immediate crisis is this: AACC is now operating at nearly three times its standard capacity. They need our help, and they need it now.”

Residents responded to that request for aid, the shelter said on Facebook, adopting more than two dozen dogs on May 24 alone.

By Thursday, a week after the seizure, less than half of the original 71 dogs remained at the shelter. Animal Care and Control said staff did not have to euthanize any of the animals thanks to an “amazing effort by everyone in our Alaskan community.”

“In just 7 days we have had 70 dogs adopted, 11 dogs go out to foster care, 5 dogs transferred to other shelters from around the state, and 2 birds picked up by a rescue,” shelter staff said. “On top of this the amount of donations that have been coming in is simply incredible; we have bags of pet food stacked as high as possible, bins filled with new toys, and enough treats to spoil every animal in our care.”

Animal Care and Control’s shelter manager, Melissa Summerfield, said by email on Tuesday that just 29 of the seized dogs remained at the shelter, in good condition.

“These dogs are doing well,” Summerfield said. “They are not socialized, and some are taking a little bit longer to warm up to the new environment and new people. There may be a few that need to be placed in foster care for a few weeks to be socialized prior to adoption but we are hopeful that all 71 dogs will be able to be placed successfully.”

The rapid pace of adoptions played a key role in clearing the shelter to work with the new animals, according to Summerfield.

“Just 3 days after the seizure we were back down to a normal operating level thanks to the 60 dogs adopted in just one weekend!” Summerfield said. “We have received over 100 applications for volunteers, fosters, and our Tails on Trails program so we are asking the public to be patient as we process these.”

Court records show that Marshall was released from jail on May 23 with her next court appearance scheduled for July 23.

Hoonah’s Police Chief submitted his resignation after less than two years in the role. Then, the city fired him. He says it was retaliation.

The City of Hoonah’s chief of police, Carlos Frias, submitted his resignation on Friday after he was placed on administrative leave. On Monday, he was informed that the city had declined it and terminated his employment.

Frias said he was placed on leave because of an excessive use of force complaint. He argues the investigation was one-sided and aimed at removing him. 

He alleges he was pushed out of his role because he began investigating complaints of misconduct against some city leaders. City leaders deny the allegations and say he was fired for a series of violations, including excessive use of force.

In an interview Friday, Frias said he did not want to leave the role — but he said city officials told him he could resign or be fired.

“A lot of it was just constant retaliation from the city, but the biggest thing was that they were already planning on firing me anyway,” he said. 

Frias began his tenure as chief in the fall of 2023. He and his family moved to Hoonah from Tucson, Arizona, where he also worked in law enforcement. Hoonah is a small fishing community on the northeastern side of Chichagof Island, west of Juneau. 

Frias said he was investigating alleged domestic violence and sexual assault complaints made against some city leaders, along with other misconduct.

“As I was gathering more information on stuff that was going on within the city, and I went to question the city, that’s when everything just kind of went south,”  he said. “I was told, ‘Hey, you’re not supposed to investigate that.’”

Hoonah’s City Attorney Jim Sheehan denied the allegations.

“If he’s alleging that his termination was a result of retaliation by the city or any official employer at the city, that’s a false statement,” he said in an interview Monday. 

Sheehan confirmed that Frias was placed on administrative leave on May 13 before he submitted his resignation, but declined to give a reason why on Monday afternoon. Later that day, city officials informed Frias he was fired for misconduct.

Frias said he worries about the public’s safety and residents’ ability to report concerns or problems without fear of retaliation. 

“I did my homework here, I put in the work so that people can actually trust me here,” he said. “It’s unfortunate that I have to leave, because certain circumstances are getting me out of here.”

The interim chief is Benjamin Botts, formerly with the Ketchikan Police Department. Sheehan said the city hasn’t begun searching for a new permanent replacement for the chief, but he expects to see that happen in the coming days. 

Frias can choose to appeal the decision to terminate him. He said he plans to leave Hoonah as soon as he can. 

At a recent Juneau Assembly meeting, Juneau property and business owners testified that interactions with unhoused people camping near the airport have been escalating. 

“We get attacked,” said Tiffany Koeneman, an employee at Alaska Glacier Seafoods. She told Assembly members that she and her coworkers were recently threatened by a man with a knife.

“So we had to call JPD,” she said. “We have people out there loading vans, but that’s not the worst of it. I mean, the safety part of it, somebody’s going to get hurt.”

Scott Jenkins owns property near Teal Street Center, which is home to many services for Juneau’s vulnerable communities. He told the Assembly he worries about safety and public health and listed some hazards. 

“Blocking the sideways leaving trash everywhere, shooting up drugs outside people’s windows, needles in the ditches and in our vehicles, piles of human crap in and around the creek area on our property,” he said.

He said the encampments have begun to affect the way he views the neighborhood. 

“People camping is one thing, but should they be able to claim ground anywhere they wish, as long as it’s not private property?” Jenkins said.

The answer to his question is “not really.” Juneau city policy allows for dispersed camping only on unimproved public land. A 2024 Supreme Court decision gave cities even more latitude to suppress homeless encampments when it said cities may ban people from camping in public places. 

Now some Juneau residents are asking that the city crack down on encampments. But city officials say increased policing won’t necessarily help. 

Instead, the city has given guidelines to the police for how and when law enforcement should intervene — like after an encampment has caused problems for the surrounding community. 

“The police isn’t going to solve homelessness,” said Juneau Police Deputy Chief Krag Campbell. “But if we can help them, you know, do some basic needs that might help out other members in the community.”

Campbell said JPD offers help with disposing of trash at the encampments—but he said it’s hard for police to respond to calls where a resident reports illegal activity at an encampment. Often the only evidence is what that caller said.

“Those are really hard ones to handle as police because by the time you get there, they’re probably still not engaged in that behavior,” he said.

And he said that when people call in, they have to testify and sometimes press charges in order for a case to be prosecuted. He said sometimes, callers don’t want to get involved beyond the initial call. 

“They want that person gone,” Campbell said. “They want that person arrested, but they don’t want to be the mechanism to make it happen”

Deputy City Manager Robert Barr said the Supreme Court case means Juneau police can enforce city limitations on camping that have been in CBJ code for years. 

“We utilize that carefully, and I would say both compassionately and firmly, when we need to utilize it,” he said.

Barr said JPD generally begins to get involved when an encampment continually creates problems, whether that be trash build up or open drug use. He said the city focuses on individual people or camps that repeatedly impact other people using the area, instead of widespread clearing of encampments.

“The code says what it says,” Barr said. “And at the same time, people have to be somewhere.”

Juneau used to have a city-run campground near downtown that unhoused people could live in in the summer months. Last spring, after considering moving the campground, the city closed it, and instructed people to dispersed camp — to sleep on public land. 

Barr said data on the number of unhoused people living in Juneau is very limited, but it shows there are more people living outside now than in the past. And he said that’s true nationwide, as affordable housing becomes more scarce.

“Which is unfortunate,” he said. “And of course, something we don’t control at the local level, but that is a reality that we have to deal with at the local level.”

Kaia Quinto directs the Glory Hall homeless shelter in Juneau. City officials say encampments tend to cluster around the shelter because it offers services and Quinto agrees.

“I think the Glory Hall staff as a whole, you know, we’re feeling very uncomfortable,” she said.

Quinto said just last week, two staff members were assaulted. She said JPD has been stepping in to help police the area around the shelter, and it’s helped her and her staff feel safer. But she said the calls for increased policing of the area don’t really make sense to her.

“JPD is doing all they can, so I think, like, I really don’t know what else they could do,” Quinto said. “It’s very clear to me, at least, that they’re doing everything they can.”

Quinto said some unhoused people using the Glory Hall’s services have told her that they feel like they have nowhere to go. They’ve been asked to move over and over again. 

“It’s very obvious that we have more people who are unhoused than we have shelter beds,” she said.

And until that changes, she said she doesn’t know of any realistic solutions to the increased encampments and threats her staff face. 

 

An ordinance mandating that the Juneau Police Department release body-worn camera footage no more than 30 days after a city police officer shoots someone will be open for public testimony later this month. 

That’s after the Juneau Assembly advanced the policy change ordinance at a committee meeting on Monday. 

Juneau officers have been wearing body-worn cameras since 2017. But there’s nothing in JPD’s policies that says when footage must be released to the public. Juneau residents have been advocating for that to change following two deadly shootings by officers last year. 

At the meeting, Juneau Police Chief Derek Bos said he’s on board with putting a policy into place.  

“Our intention is to release the body camera footage as quickly as we can. We’re not looking to push this out in perpetuity,” he said. “Our end goal would always be if we can get this done in 15 days, let’s get it done in 15 days. If we can get it done in three extra days, we’ll do it in three extra days.”

It took the department more than 30 days to release the body-worn camera footage after both deadly shootings last year. The department did not release the footage until after the state’s Office of Special Prosecutions completed its investigation of the shootings. In both cases, the state ruled that the officers involved were justified in their use of lethal force. Officers were not charged for either death. 

While the Assembly’s proposed policy would mandate a 30-day release, it would also give the city manager and police chief the ability to delay the release of footage beyond that deadline in certain circumstances. They would be required to provide a reason to the public and the delay could only last until the state investigation is complete.

Some Assembly members took issue with that. So did the city’s Systemic Racism Review Committee, said City Attorney Emily Wright.

“They expressed frustration with that,” Wright said. “They felt like it would be a pretty large loophole and could be really used by the city to delay much too long.”

Juneau’s proposed timeline would be much shorter than what the state’s Office of Special Prosecutions requests and shorter than the timeline the Anchorage Police Department put in place last year following a string of police shootings. APD’s policy mandates that footage be released within 45 days of the incident, while the state requests at least 60 days.

The Assembly will consider the ordinance on Monday, May 19. There will be an opportunity for public testimony before members vote on whether to adopt it.

A Homer pilot and passenger from Anchorage died Monday in a plane crash near the Kenai Peninsula community of Nanwalek, after investigators say a landing attempt was aborted due to a dog on the runway.

The commercial flight operated by Homer-based Smokey Bay Air had been headed from Homer to Nanwalek at the time of the crash, said Clint Johnson, Alaska chief of the National Transportation Safety Board.

“Witnesses on the ground as well as another airplane in trail indicated that while the airplane was on approach to Nanwalek, there was apparently a dog that was on the runway,” Johnson said. “It appears that the pilot initiated a go-around, and during that go-around there was a loss of control.”

Johnson said the Cessna 207 didn’t touch down on the initial approach, and the dog wasn’t struck.

The plane crashed in a tide-line area near the north end of Nanwalek’s runway.

Alaska State Troopers identified the two people killed as pilot Daniel Bunker, 48, and passenger Jenny Irene Miller, 37.

Miller was a well-known Inupiaq artist and photographer originally from Nome, who was also celebrated as a role model and mentor for LGBTQ+ and two-spirit youth. Bunker is survived by his wife and their two sons, and remembered as a kind and skilled pilot.

Another passenger who has not been publicly identified was seriously injured in the crash and was transported to an Anchorage hospital.

The crash happened around 2 p.m. Monday. Troopers reported receiving multiple 911 calls. As they responded by helicopter with an NTSB investigator, many local residents headed to the crash site to help, Johnson said. The first responders included the local school principal and staff, according to the superintendent of the Kenai Peninsula Borough School District, Clayton Holland.

“Our principal and staff were involved with the immediate response to the wreck and we are thankful to them and all the other community members who responded to provide aide,” Holland said in a text message.

Troopers spokesman Austin McDaniel said residents found the plane on a beach near the runway. The plane wasn’t submerged at the time of the wreck.

“They were able to get one male passenger out of the aircraft, bringing him to the medical clinic where he received medical treatment,” McDaniel said.

Locals tried to provide lifesaving care for Bunker and Miller, McDaniel said, but the two were declared dead at the scene.

Along with troopers and the NTSB, numerous other agencies also responded to the crash, including Guardian Flight, LifeMed, Maritime Helicopters, the U.S. Coast Guard and the Alaska State Park Rangers.

Condolences poured in Tuesday for those impacted by the crash.

Holland, the Kenai Peninsula superintendent, said the crash is a tragedy for the entire Nanwalek community and Homer as well, and offered his thoughts and prayers for all involved.

Nanwalek is roughly 25 miles southwest of Homer and only reachable by boat or plane. It has about 240 residents.

in an online video from earlier this year, pilot Daniel Bunker said he regularly flew to three remote villages, describing it as a rewarding job and a way to connect the residents there to the mainland. Smokey Bay Air ran regular flights to Nanwalek, Port Graham and Seldovia.

“We are deeply saddened by the tragic plane crash involving Smokey Bay Air, and we mourn the loss of Daniel Bunker — a skilled pilot and kind soul who served our communities with dedication,” said an online post from Seldovia Village Tribe.

In a statement, staff and board members with the nonprofit Native Movement mourned Jenny Irene Miller’s sudden passing, describing her as a wonderful friend, a kind human and a true luminary. Miller was a board member at the nonprofit.

“Jenny was such a bright and kind human doing good work for the world, a good friend who always reminded me to be thoughtful of others and caring even when it’s hard to be,” said fellow board member and friend Tikaan Galbreath. “Every time I had the chance to be with her, it felt like the simple joys were more clearly present and laughter was easy to find. I’ll sorely miss her friendship.”

Miller’s work has been displayed across the country and the globe.

“It was easy to love Jenny,” said Misty Nickoli. “I felt peace in her presence. Which is a hard thing to accomplish in the work and lives that we live. She always made me feel special and beautiful. She always made room for kindness. My heart is with her wife, family and our community.”

Johnson, with the NTSB, said crews were working Tuesday to recover the plane before waters rose.

“Obviously we want to get it out of there as soon as possible,” Johnson said. “We don’t want to risk losing the wreckage.”

The NTSB plans to transport the plane to Anchorage or Wasilla for a close inspection of the aircraft and its contents, as it continues to investigate what caused the crash.

Johnson said that animals on runways in rural Alaska have been reported to the NTSB before. But, he said, Monday’s incident is the first he can recall in which one has been a potential factor in a fatal crash.

“(In) Bush operations, you do see this,” Johnson said. “And animals, whether it’s a dog or a moose or whatever, obviously that’s going to be a peril that you have to contend with.”

The NTSB has previously visited Nanwalek, which has an 1,850-foot curved runway with frequent high winds.

According to an NTSB report, the same aircraft that crashed Monday had a rough landing there during a Smokey Bay Air flight in August 2016. The pilot and sole occupant, who was unhurt, reported encountering “a pretty rapid shift in the winds in both direction and velocity” just before touchdown. The plane bounced, touched down again, then overran the end of the runway, damaging its propeller and a wing.

Smokey Bay Air could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

The NTSB is asking anyone who witnessed the crash and has not already spoken with investigators to contact them by email at witness@ntsb.gov.

KDLL’s Ashlyn O’Hara contributed to this report.