Commenter tells Anchorage homelessness commission an officer mistreats campers

A frequent public commenter named Jamie told Anchorage's Housing, Homeless and Neighborhood Development Commission on Nov. 4 that a police officer mistreats people living outside during camp clearings.

He said that during a clearing about two weeks earlier, the officer gave a man in a tent 15 minutes to grab his things and leave, and the man lost all his belongings. He said that in another encounter the officer picked out a man to be searched and grabbed him inappropriately during a pat-down. Jamie said this was the fourth or fifth such incident he had heard about or seen.

He said he told Police Chief Sean Case four to five months ago that the officer should be pulled from that duty and kept away from marginalized or vulnerable people, and that he raised it with Case again recently.

The city's camping ordinance, which took effect July 15, 2025, made camping in specified public locations a criminal offense and lets police clear those areas immediately without the notice previously required. The Assembly reviewed the ordinance's first year in August.

Thea Agnew-Bemben of the Mayor's Office urged Jamie to file a formal complaint through the city's website. "You can do it anonymously, and 100% of those complaints are investigated, and about a third of them are sustained," she said.

Jamie said he had gone through the police chain of command instead, hoping the officer could be pulled from the duty without harm to his career. "It can't work that way," Agnew-Bemben said.

One commissioner offered to meet with Jamie and write up his comment for the commission.