A different kind of fair ride

PALMER — It snarls local roadways, causes pounding headaches and thirty-minute delays.

It’s sometimes riddled with the intoxicated, the angry, and the out-of-towners.

During the roughly two-week extended bash that is the Alaska State Fair, fair traffic, whether in car or pedestrian form, is everywhere around Palmer. The town itself has a population of about 6,000 with the presence of a fair that can average 20,000 visitors in a single day, more than two thirds of which don’t come from Palmer or Wasilla.

Fortunately, (or perhaps unfortunately, if your brake light is on the fritz, for example), so are Palmer police officers.

The Palmer Police Department, along with the Alaska State Troopers and other agencies step up law-enforcement efforts to a crescendo during the fair. Usually, officers at the Palmer department work a week of 12-hour shifts, then get a week off, to work another week of 12-hours shifts. During the 13-day fair, any regularly scheduled off days are suspended, and each of the department’s five officers works every day. Monday through Thursday, officers work 10-hour shifts, and 12-hour shifts Friday through Sunday. Every year, at least one or two officers end up with a week of 12-hour shifts, then two weeks of fair, a total of at least 20 days of 10- to 12-hour shifts.

Officers like Simon Ford — an affable, outgoing patrol officer — do their best to keep the grind in perspective. For example, Wednesday (September 2), when a Frontiersman reporter joined the fair late shift for a ride-along, dispatchers floated around the dispatch center — the graveyard shift’s unofficial break room — in hippie regalia, part of a themed week. One officer has liberated a long-abandoned acoustic guitar from the found property collection to serve as musical stress relief. It’s the quiet lull before the frantic weekend approaches. There are cupcakes.

Despite these comforts, the workload and heightened awareness required for police work take their toll. After a long shift comes a hard crash from the adrenaline. Ford doesn’t go to the fair. He prefers fishing or camping instead.

“I’ve been a cop for five years, which isn’t a heck of a long time,” he says. “But it’s pretty much ruined public events for me. I get so uncomfortable not being able to see behind me, and I’ve got to watch people and see what they’re doing. It’s kind of toxic.”

Ford slows his SUV, which has crept a tad faster than he intended.

“Yeah, my wife hates that, because she wants me to have a good time and play with the kids and I’m always looking at people and going like ‘Oh, he’s got drugs in his pocket, look at him,’” he says growing serious for a moment. “So that’s kinda lame.”

A moment later, he’s back to smiling.

“But I was never a big guy into crowds anyway,” he says.

Ordinarily the boost in work hours would mean overtime, which would mean increased property taxes.

Instead, police use the statistical upswings to drive up arrests in certain categories, like those for intoxicated driving, to step up categories where federal grant funding is available. In 2014, the city received about $7,000 in federal grant money for the traffic enforcement from the National Highway Traffic Administration, the majority for extra overtime pay and a small fraction for fuel. Officers monitor traffic for a stretch, recording the statistics in the log.

Officers tend to emphasize serious stops: alcohol-related stops take priority. The more serious the call, the more evidence that the grant is meeting its intended goal, and the more likely it is to get renewed.

The work and Ford’s conversation keep up a steady pattern, with interruptions for moments of spontaneous intensity. At one point, dispatch crackles out a Report Every Dangerous Driver Immediately notice that appears like a DUI, and multiple patrol cars scramble to find the driver. Ford steps on the gas, and police catch the driver a moment later near the airport. He takes drunk driving personally, because his father went through a windshield after a collision with an intoxicated driver. Ford’s father survived, but years later periodically has fragments of glass removed from his face.

Ultimately, they determine that a blown stop sign is the result of driver distracted by a mechanical issue. He’s let off with a “stern lecture.” Three subsequent drivers are stopped because — while their taillights work — their car brake lights don’t. Traffic work tends to run in groups of three, Ford said.

Most are let off with a warning, a couple jokes, a quick story about fishing for a woman with a cracked windshield.

“You try and find that line where you can have good contact with people but be personable and respectful, (and) still take away some of that stress,” he said.

Different agencies have a different approach to policing, and the Palmer approach is generally to try kindness first, Ford says. Ford supports this approach, though he admits to initial trepidation on the traffic stops.

“We’re like ‘Step out of the vehicle please,’ and if they don’t do it, then we’re like throw ‘em on the ground,” he joked. “At least let’s try the nice thing first and see if it works, and it usually does."

Ford said he has multiple means "to make people do things," such as a Tazer, pepper spray, a baton and two guns but he's "never used any of it."

"I’ve pointed it at people before," though, he said. "It’s amazing what that red dot will do.”

The fair brings an odd, though not necessarily urgent assortment of calls, he said.

“We’ve had probably a dozen stolen car reports at the fair,” he said. “So far, 100 percent have been found right where they were parked.”

Fair attendees become disoriented and can’t find their vehicles when they come out, so they report the vehicles stolen.

At 11 p.m., the post-fair rush has slimmed enough for Ford to grab a cup of coffee.

He thinks about policing in pastoral terms.

“There’s a story they told us at academy that I really, really liked,” he said. “They said ‘The vast majority of people are like sheep.’ That’s not a insult. It just means they’re simple, non-violent creatures, they like to hang out together they’re just looking for green grass and they’re trying to get through life. They’re just trying to get along and take care of themselves.”

Criminals are like wolves in that they don’t mind harming the sheep, and they feed off the sheep, Ford said.

“Then there’s those of us who have chosen the law enforcement profession, we’re like sheep dogs,” he said. “So we’ve got teeth and claws, too, and the tools and the familiarity and comfort with using violence if it comes to that. The difference between us and the wolves is that we love the sheep.”

Contact reporter Brian O’Connor at 352-2270, brian.oconnor@frontiersman.com, or on Twitter @reporterbriano.