Alaskan Town's Police Department Quits

The entire police force of Sand Point, AK, quit in July, leaving the town without any law enforcement presence.

The entire police force of Sand Point, AK, quit in July, leaving the town without any law enforcement presence, reports the Alaska Dispatch News.

Sand Point is an Aleutian island town of about 1,000 people. Until mid-July, it had a police force of three officers and a police chief.

Around July 10, the first police officer quit when his military spouse was transferred out of state, said city manager Andy Varner. Soon after, two police officers—a married couple—resigned from their jobs "to take care of some personal family issues." That left police chief Roger Bacon.

But when Bacon opted to go on a long-planned monthlong vacation to Scotland, leaving the town without any police presence, Bacon and the city council made a "kind of mutual" decision that he wouldn't have a job when he returned, according to Varner.

That meant Sand Point had no police force left, at the peak of the frenzied commercial fishing and processing season – for about five days. Varner says they would have called on the Alaska State Police for help if they had needed it.

The city has now hired an interim police chief.

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