A friend who formerly lived not far fro us in Kaaawa, now living in Anchorage, Alaska, is in Honolulu on a business trip and was able to join us for dinner and a few glasses of wine at our place last night.

Somewhere in our long, rambling conversation, she mentioned that the Alaska State Troopers maintain a website describing the incidents they respond to.

Sure enough, a quick search found the website of the Alaska Department of Public Safety’s Public Information Office, which includes a daily listing of incidents, including details of arrests.

There’s a disclaimer on each day’s listing: “Any charges reported in these press releases are merely accusations and the defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.”

For example, here’s an incident from Tuesday, August 2.

I had to look the term “REDDI”–it’s a reference to their program, “Report Every Drunk Driver Immediately.” It helps to understand the description.

On 8-1-16 approximately 2330 hours, the Alaska State Troopers attempted to stop a reported REDDI in the village of Selawik. The driver of the ATV was identified as Dean L. Mitchell, 24 of Selawik AST with assistance of SPD found Mitchell had taken the ATV to a residence, quickly covered the ATV up with a tarp and then ran inside a residence not his and jumped into a bed, also not his and covered himself up, pretending to have been sleeping. The owner of the residence had met with AST outside and said Mitchell ran inside to the back of the residence. Mitchell was subsequently arrested for DUI. During the investigation it was also revealed Mitchell’s driver’s license was revoked. Mitchell was charged with a felony DUI for 2 prior DUI arrests since 2010 and remanded at Kotzebue Jail.

I love the understated, “…not his…,” and then “also not his.”

In any case, it’s a good example of how transparent a police agency can be.

And that REDDI program sounds like something we might want to explore.