Alaska State Troopers

In response to objections from several municipalities in Southcentral and Southeast Alaska, Gov. Mike Dunleavy has formed a working group to come up with recommendations on how to consolidate dispatching services for the Alaska State Troopers.

The Alaska Department of Public Safety announced in mid-May that it would consolidate all the emergency dispatching services from the Kenai Peninsula, Mat-Su valley, and Southeast to a facility in Palmer. The issue has been going on for several years, when the DPS first announced the plan under the Walker administration, though the new center was originally planned for Anchorage.

  A Nikiski teenager was killed in a four-wheeler accident on Monday night.

Fourteen-year-old Skylar Lyon was out riding a four-wheeler along Halbouty Road in Nikiski around 8 p.m. when he went off the road and hit a tree, according to Alaska State Troopers.

If you call 911 on the Kenai Peninsula right now, chances are that your call goes to a big building in Soldotna just down the street from Safeway. From there, the emergency call center dispatchers determine who to send to help.  

Kenai, Seward and Homer handle their own dispatching, but the staff at the emergency dispatch center serve the Alaska State Troopers, CES and the Soldotna Police Department, among other services, which covers a big chunk of the central peninsula. Last year, the center processed more than 24,000 calls.

Feb. 3 update: The offier involved in the shooting was Sgt. Robert Hunter, a 20-year veteran of the Alaska State Troopers.

An Alaska State Trooper was involved in a shooting in Kasilof on Wednesday. According to a Department of Public Safety report, troopers in Soldotna received a report of a domestic disturbance possibly involving a gunshot in the area of Coho Loop at around 6:15 p.m. Wednesday.