2016 Clown Sightings (Anchorage Police Department)

Mr. Lasser,

Our systems do not allow for us to retrieve data based on the criteria you are requesting.

Reports made to APD by the public involving a "clown sighting" may or may not generate a police report. If a police report is generated, it could be filed under any number of report categories, depending on various circumstances, as determined by the responding officer. A "clown attack" report would be filed as some level of assault. The fact that a clown was involved would be minor detail of the report. Because of this, there is no way for us to search for "clown related" incidents or reports. The Records Section would have to look individually at and estimate of over 10,000 reports, to determine if any involved clowns. At 5 reports an hour, this would take upwards of 2000 hours of research to locate the reports (if there are any to be located). APD Records is required to charge a research fee of $40.00 per hour as well as additional copying fees. Large requests such as this require payment up front, based on the fees listed below as mandated by municipal code.
Regarding electronically fulfilling your request, reports can not be set via unsecure email.

For general information, any releasable reports are researched and redacted at a cost of a $40.00 per hour. Victim information and other protected information would have to be redacted from any reports before they could be released. This charge is mandated by AMC 3.90.005 - Record Retrieval Charges.
Any redacted reports that are determined to be releasable would result in a fee of $6.00 for the first 5 pages per report, and $.30 for each additional page per report. These charges are outlined in AMC 3.90.002 - copying charges.

If you can provide specific case numbers, dates and times or names of involved people, we can better assist you.

Please let me know how you wish to proceed.

Pamela Miller
APD Records Clerk III
786-8600