Anchorage's police and fire departments remain disproportionately white despite diversity efforts. Police and fire officials say they're hampered by a tight labor market and limited budgets. But critics say they could be doing much more.
2 years after George Floyd murder, Anchorage’s police and fire departments still struggle to diversifyAnchorage Police Department officers respond to the scene in downtown Anchorage in April, 2022.
“With a goal comes accountability, comes purpose,” said Midtown Assembly member Felix Rivera. “We don’t have that — we just have sort of wishy-washy hopes.” At the Anchorage Police Department, the percent of officers who are white has dropped slightly from 78.73% to 77.65%. There were five police officers who identified as Pacific Islanders out of more than 400 officers in the force in 2020. Today, there are four. The number of Black, Alaska Native and Asian officers has also declined in the past two years, though the percentages have stayed about equal.
“When the discussion becomes a trade-off of we need to close this fire engine, and move those people into a recruiting capacity… Gosh, the community is not very supportive of us closing a fire engine,” he said. The Assembly recently tried to allocate $50,000 to the Anchorage Police Department to recruit officers reflective of Anchorage’s demographics with a requirement that it report back on its efforts by October.
“Instead of just cutting them because they didn’t show up for an interview, maybe they didn’t have adequate transportation,” he said. “It’s that type of thinking that we’ve added.” Still, Boyd said, the department is running into a catch-22 of recruiting: without a representative force, recruiters are less effective. But to get a more representative force, they need to recruit more people from diverse backgrounds.
For example, she said, her group hosts regular Zoom talks on topics important to the Black community and an annual community health fair. She said police and fire haven’t reached out to participate or set up a recruiting table.
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