Alaska 1

Overview

(State Troopers) Nome - Trooper Ike Lorentz & Sgt. Al Schadle check the weather, 1000 foot overcast, visibility 15 miles. They are going 180 miles away, should take an hour. There was an assault and more a couple days ago. They look at the map and go out to top off the gas tank on their small plane. The state is 560,000 square miles, as big as the US. He'll work a 16 hour day and 10 of it is in the air. His beat is 200,000 square miles, if it's not the last frontier nothing is. (Village of Savoonga) There is a bootlegging operation where they make or can buy the alcohol and transport it to a dry village. This causes problems for at least a week until it dries up. Magistrate Abner Golorgergen meets them at the tiny airport. They ride in a truck to the magistrate’s office. Once there they talk to an Eskimo who seems high and usually isn't like that. There is a makeshift court in the building and they try the Eskimo man. He shot a rifle outside of a public building and was drunk in the second judicial district. The highest penalty is $5,000 and a year in jail. Ike says the man is a danger by the state of his mind and asks that bail be set in the matter. It is set at $1000. Abner wears sunglasses and jeans and as soon as he's done he takes the robe off. They have to take the man's possessions, but he doesn't want them to. He wants to take them home. He says they have to do it and he is in their possession until they get him back to Nome. He wanted help, turned himself in and wanted to get out of the village. They take him out to the airport, get on the plane and fly back. (Hit & Run Investigation) Anchorage PD - Officer Mark Hunstiger says people joke about the town. The nice thing about it is you can get to Alaska from there. There are 250,000 people living there, half the state. An island city stuck in a vast wilderness. They've had five hit & runs in the last 10 minutes by a man in an Arizona van. He spots the red van in a parking lot with a brown car under the back end. The guy ran off and witnesses point him across the street. The guy is behind a building where a woman is keeping her eye on him. He searches him and asks if he had any beers. He says three. Mark asks him if he had them all at the same time and he says yes. He admits he only backed over one car because he didn't see it. He didn't hit anyone else. His DOB is 2/31/59. Mark talks to witnesses and suddenly the drunk has left his car. He asks if this an escape and has to go back in the car. He says he will behave if he removes the cuffs. Mark says they don't make deals with drunks. They go to put him back and he fights. Two women help and they have to hobble him. He says to go ahead and arrest him. They agree. They take him back to the station and his BAC is .232. He says the Fiat parked behind him, it wasn't his fault. He skimmed off a car at a bar. Which one? The bar where they found him. He wasn't at a bar, he was at a credit union. He was? Mark says maybe they serve drinks there. The magistrate can't believe the damage he caused and since the guy only has $50 on him he won't make bail which is good because he's so dangerous. He can't believe no one got killed in his rampage. (State Troopers) Pilot Bob Larson is going to Seward to recover a body from a plane crash that happened three weeks ago. It is at the 3000 foot level in the mountains. The wreckage broke up bad the first time they were there when they found four bodies. The site is often in the clouds and they've been there four times already. Cpl. Jerry Fleetwood is coordinating the search. Hopefully he'll recover the body and the effects, ID it by whatever means, then notify the next of kin and get the remains back to them. A Cessna 207 during an hour flight tour that took people from a cruise ship hit the side of a mountain. They are supposed to meet climbers there. They land the helicopter on a mountain and walk over. Two male climbers are heading down tot he wreckage. Jerry says the best thing about...

Episode Information