Warrant officer please with response

PALMER — Since Alaska State Troopers posted a list of open warrants in the newspaper, Trooper Rick Pyles said people have been coming in to clean up their legal messes.

Pyles said 15-20 suspects found their names in the 16-page list of outstanding warrants that was published in the Dec. 30 issue of the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman and decided to turn themselves in or ask their warrants be quashed.

Add to that three tips from readers, one of which panned out, Pyles said and he’s pleased enough to try it again. The last time troopers ran such a list was in August 2006.

For three years Pyles, a seven-year judicial services veteran, has had running down warrants in the Valley as his main assignment.

“Every trooper does this,” Pyles said. “I’m the only one that [is] assigned, that’s my duty.”

His coverage area is as wide as the troopers’ B Detachment, spanning from Glennallen in the east to the Knik River bridge in the south to Cantwell in the north. Glennallen has its own courthouse, so a lot of those warrants aren’t filed in his office.

On any given day upwards of a dozen warrants are closed and can be removed from his massive open case file, which fills two file drawers at the courthouse. But new warrants are issued every day. When he began, that number was closer to 1,500, Pyles said.

There’s no doubt in Pyles’ mind why there are so many outstanding warrants in the Valley. As more people move to the Valley more people are getting into trouble. His open case file now holds names and information for 3,000 people he’d like to find.

Pyles admits it can be frustrating at times when he thinks about the backlog, but it’s just part of the job.

“You clear one and you get five more to replace it,” he said. “You’re never going to get ahead of the numbers.”

New cases take precedence as the information is fresher, he said. Precedence also goes to suspects who are a danger to the public. Looking over the files for January, Pyles said about 80 outstanding warrants have cleared and 40 new warrants have been opened.

So far things are looking good.

If those stats hold, January will be the exception, not the rule. Usually, it’s the opposite, he said. Pyles tries to get out in his car three days a week to look for folks who have outstanding warrants, but the office work is also valuable. About 80 percent of people he makes voice contact with take care of their warrants.

He also makes sure to work with other troopers, asking night shifters if they can check on a house where he hasn’t been getting an answer or notifying troopers that a suspect in his or her case has picked up a warrant. He receives tips from law enforcement all the time, including the judicial services officers in his unit.

Of the suspects he’s contacted, “I would say probably 10 percent of them say, ‘well, I had the case, I didn’t hear anything on it, I thought it was taken care of,’” Pyles said.

But a piece of advice he’d extend to anyone unsure of the status of a case is, “For the most part, things just don’t go away.”

Some people legitimately don’t know they have a warrant out for their arrest, Pyles said. And then there are those who just don’t want to be taken in. Part of his job is running them to ground. Troopers plucked one guy Pyles was chasing from the side of a bluff. Another passed Pyles as trooper drove out to knock on the suspect’s door.

When Pyles caught up to the car, the guy had bolted.

“He finally just gave up, got tired of the run,” Pyles said. “I was glad because I was tired of the run, too.”

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.