MMIW Cases (Police Department)
| Multi Request | MMIW Cases |
| Submitted | July 7, 2018 |
| Est. Completion | None |
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Communications
From: Sovereign Bodies Institute
To Whom It May Concern:
Pursuant to the Alaska Public Records Act, I hereby request the following records:
Data on all cases of: unsolved missing persons, homicides, suspicious deaths, and deaths in custody involving an Alaska Native/American Indian woman or girl victim within your jurisdiction(s). For the purposes of this request, "Alaska Native/American Indian" is defined as any individual who was identified as a member of an Alaska Native or American Indian community or as having Alaska Native/American Indian heritage. "Woman or girl" includes all victims identified as females, as well as transgender women. If there are any Jane Does that have been identified as potentially Alaska Native or American Indian, please include them as well. We are requesting cases dating from 1900 to the present.
This request is for basic information on cases as classified above. Such information may include but is not limited to victim name, location and date of disappearance/death, age of victim, status of case (solved or unsolved).
Please note that the Anchorage Police Department has already complied with a prior request, and provided extensive data on such cases in their jurisdiction. A previous request was filed utilizing the Juneau Police Department website's online record request system approximately 8 months ago, with no response.
The requested documents will be made available to the general public, and this request is not being made for commercial purposes.
In the event that there are fees, I would be grateful if you would inform me of the total charges in advance of fulfilling my request. I would prefer the request filled electronically, by e-mail attachment if available or CD-ROM if not.
Thank you in advance for your anticipated cooperation in this matter. I look forward to receiving your response to this request within 10 business days, as the statute requires.
Sincerely,
Annita Lucchesi
From: Police Department
Good morning Ms. Lucchesi,
I first wanted to address your comment about previously requesting this same information 8 months ago. I looked back and we had a request from your organization in September of last year but that request was for sex assault kit statuses and we did fulfill that. Please forward me a copy of the request you are referring to so I can look into it.
I have received your current request and will research what we have and get back to you with any costs.
Sincerely,
Cindy Ruby
Juneau Police Department
From: Sovereign Bodies Institute
Hello Cindy,
I think you must have me confused with a different project. I have never filed any request for any data on sexual assault kits in any jurisdiction. My records show that I sent an email to you on Oct 11, 2017. Sexual assault kits are not mentioned anywhere in that email. I have attached screenshots of that email here.
Best,
Annita
From: Police Department
Definitely not the same request! Let me look into this one and I will see what I can find. We are still working on the other one.
From: Sovereign Bodies Institute
Hi Cindy,
The request I sent in October is actually requesting the same data as the most recent request. The only differences are (1) the initial request included a list of cases to verify *in addition to* searching for the data as outlined (2) the initial request was filed via personal email, whereas the recent request was sent using a paid service called MuckRock. To be clear, the general public should not have to use a formal, paid service in order for our requests to be responded to in a timely manner.
Can you clarify which requests the dept has been working on, and why I didn't receive a response to the initial request?
Thanks
Annita
From: Police Department
Hi Annita,
Your previous request certainly got overlooked, as I have no record of getting that to our report releasers. Report requests don't normally come through my email, they are received through our website. I don't know anything about MuckRock and their fees.
My apology and guarantee we are now working on what you have requested. I have both your previous request and the one you sent me yesterday in the hands of our report releasers and you will have a response within 3-5 business days.
Thank you,
Cindy
From: Police Department
Good morning Annita,
I'm emailing an update to keep you apprised of where we are in your request. I received a report this morning that should help with identifying the data you requested.
Can you clarify if your request reads "all cases of unsolved missing persons, unsolved homicides, etc." Or are you requesting only unsolved missing persons but ANY homicide, etc.?
Thank you,
Cindy
From: Sovereign Bodies Institute
Hi Cindy,
I'm asking for all homicides (open & closed), and only unsolved missing persons (open, not closed). Thanks for asking for the clarification!
Annita
From: Police Department
Good morning Annita,
I just wanted to give you an update on your request for records with us. I received an 87 page report from our crime analyst and I am working on whittling that down quite a bit before I can figure out the information you need. I haven't forgotten you, it's just a process at the moment.
Thank you,
Cindy
From: Sovereign Bodies Institute
Hi Cindy--thanks so much for the update, and for your hard work, it's much appreciated.
Annita
From: Police Department
Good Afternoon,
I have received and reviewed your request for data concerning missing, murdered, suspicious deaths, and deaths in custody involving Alaskan Native/American Indian women, to include transgender women. You indicated you were looking for all cases that fit these criteria from 1900 - present. We were able to search our records from 1999-2018.
In regards to records prior to 1999 it will take a significant amount of staff time and resources to research this request, as CBJ01.70.070(b) applies, this review and production would take more than 5 hours and would be subject to a charge of actual staff cost per hour, required to be paid in advance. If you wish to go forward I can provide a quote. Additionally, under CBJ01.70.070(b) given the resources that would need to be dedicated to such a search, the search will be conducted as staff time allows.
Below is the data you requested for the timeframe of 1999-2018:
Case #: 2006-033451
Type: Murder/Suicide
Name: Bernadine Wlodarczyk
Location: N. Douglas Hwy / 13 Mile
Date of Event: 10/01/2006
Age: 48
Status: Closed
Case #: 160404-005
Type: Missing Person
Name: Loridee Wilson
Location: 3250 Hospital Drive
Date of Event/Last seen: 03/24/2016
Age: 30
Status: Open
There is one additional report not being included at this time per AS 40.25.120(a)(2); records pertaining to juveniles.
Please let me know if you have any questions.
Thanks,
Brian Youll
Law Enforcement Records Technician
Juneau Police Department
(907) 500-0603
From: Sovereign Bodies Institute
Hello Brian,
Thank you for this information, it is much appreciated. I would like to get a price quote for the remaining work to be done in pulling these records prior to 1999.
Also, I understand that identifying information regarding the juvenile victim cannot be released. However, would it be possible to tell me if the juvenile is missing, or was the victim of a homicide? Or what the incident year was? That will assist us in compiling our research, without compromising the privacy of the victim and their family.
Thank you,
Annita
From: Police Department
Good Morning,
We are in the process of building the quote for the time period before 1999. I am currently awaiting our database specialist to let me know how feasible it will be to pull data from our old records management system. I also wish to advise that our records only go back to 1956.
In regards to the juvenile case:
Case #: 171210-015
Type: Runaway
Date of case: 12/10/2017
While the status of a runaway does not quite fit what your criteria were, the youth in question has not been physically confirmed by a police officer or the parent and is therefore included as a possible missing person.
Thanks,
Brian Youll
Law Enforcement Records Technician
Juneau Police Department
(907) 500-0603
-
~WRD000
From: Police Department
Good Afternoon,
I have reviewed the extent of our records and spoken with our database administrator and have information regarding searching the remaining years. In essence, this request may be too resource intensive and burdensome for staff to take on, and the cost may become exceedingly prohibitive.
The summary is thus:
1900-1999:
1900 - 1956: No Records.
1900 - Mid-1970's: Files on microfilm, no index of what the film contains.
Mid 1970's - 1989: Files on microfilm, index cards by name of persons and contents of microfilm.
1956 - 1989, approx.. 40,000 index cards and ~250 rolls of microfilm to review.
1989 - 1999: Data contained on WISCARS management system.
The data contained on WISCARS is not exportable for us to manually search the data tables as we could in our modern system, nor does the program let us do free-format searches by case type or title. We are only able to search by name and case number, severely hampering our ability to acquire relevant data, in essence, if we don't know the name or the case number it will be difficult to find any relevant cases.
Thus I am unable to provide a truly accurate quote of what it would take to review the relevant data. At best, I can confirm it would be approx. 40 hours to review the index cards and any cases that they would contain, but this would only account for ~15 years of data. As it is a new calendar month the first 5 hours would be at no cost, the remaining 35 would be billed at staff cost per hour, which is $33.93, for a total of $1,187.55. For the remaining years I am unable to give an accurate quote given all the variables at play in attempting to pull such data, but I could assume it would take at least another 60-80 hours, and may not be accurate given the restrictions on searching data in the WISCARS system.
Please let me know if you have any questions about this or wish to discuss this further.
Thanks,
Brian Youll
Law Enforcement Records Technician
Juneau Police Department
(907) 500-0603
-
~WRD000