Sullivan Honors APD Chief Justin Doll as “Alaskan of the Week”
WASHINGTON—On the floor of the U.S. Senate yesterday, in honor of National Police Week, U.S. Senator Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) recognized Justin Doll, the outgoing chief of the Anchorage Police Department (APD). Sen. Sullivan and Chief Doll served together in the Marine Corps Reserve, Company E, 4th Reconnaissance Battalion for five years in the 1990s. Doll is retiring after serving for 25 years with APD, and as the chief of the department since 2017. Sen. Sullivan recognized Doll as part of his series, “Alaskan of the Week.”
TRIBUTE TO JUSTIN DOLL
Madam President, it is Thursday, and it is that time of the week I come down on the Senate floor and get to do one of my favorite things of the whole week. I get to recognize the special Alaskan, someone whom we call the Alaskan of the Week.
But before I talk about our Alaskan of the Week--and my good friend from Texas, Senator Cornyn, just talked about the importance of supporting our police and leaders in the police forces, and it is National Police Week. It is very appropriate that the Alaskan of the Week this week is outgoing Anchorage Police Chief Justin Doll.
I am going to tell you a lot about Chief Doll's great career in Alaska. I want to first begin by just giving a quick little update. I know people who watch the Alaskan of the Week want to know: Hey, what is going on in Alaska right now? It is such a great place, a special place.
Right now, it is approaching midnight Sun time in most places across the State. I will give you one example. In Anchorage, the Sun officially rose at 5:16 a.m. and will set at 10:37 p.m. That is a lot of daylight. Twilight actually starts around 4 a.m. and ends around midnight.
We are getting to that midnight Sun time, summer solstice time. A frenzied energy hits the State at this time of year. It is all the more so because the State is opening up, like so many States across America now, after a long year of hunkering down--late night walks, softball, yard work, gatherings.
If you are watching and you have never been to Alaska, it is a great time to be in Alaska. I urge everyone in the Gallery and at home to come on up to Alaska.
You may have seen some of the action on the Senate floor a couple of minutes ago. It is looking more and more like we are going to have, hopefully, at least part of a cruise season. But we are welcoming everybody to come to Alaska this summer. You will love it. Heck, you can even get vaccinated if your State is not doing that for you, so come on up.
We all know that what makes the State truly great is not the hours of Sun it gets or its salmon-choked streams and rivers or the magnificent wildlife--moose, bear, caribou--or the soaring mountains, all of which, of course, in Alaska we have in spades. Nothing makes our communities, our State, our country strong like the people who live in our communities, and none are perhaps more important to community strength and cohesion than our brave first responders, our police officers who wake up every day determined to protect others.
I know there is a movement across the country, and Senator Cornyn just talked about it--in my view, a dangerous movement--and that is the call to defund the police. It makes zero sense, by the way. You want your communities safe, and you are going to get rid of your police? It makes no sense.
Here is the thing about police officers like Chief Doll and first responders. These jobs are not only important, in my view, they are sacred. Now, every job in America is an important job, but there is something special, there is something even sacred about the job of our first responders--police, firemen, our military--whose job it is literally to go lay down their lives for their fellow citizens if called to do that. That is sacred.
I think it is important for all of us here in the Senate to be very clear how much we support our police and our first responders all across the nation, especially during this week. That is why I am so honored and thrilled in many ways to be able to recognize our Alaskan of the Week this week, who is outgoing Anchorage Police Department Chief Justin Doll, who has served with APD for 25 years and has been the chief of the department since 2017. Justin has worked with, supported, and overseen more than 600 members of the APD, brave men and women who keep about 300,000 residents in the Anchorage area, my hometown, safe--roughly 200 square miles.
Let me tell you a bit about Justin, who also happens to be a Marine Corps brother of mine--a man of service, a man of honor, courage, and commitment. Born and raised in Oregon, he moved with his family to Anchorage in 1985 when he was just 12 years old. The country was coming out of a recession. Alaska was doing well. His parents saw opportunity, so they packed their U-Haul and drove up to Alcan.
His mother ended up working in an orthodontist office, and his father worked for 22 years at the famous Hotel Captain Cook, one of the great locally owned hotels in all of Alaska.
Justin graduated from West Anchorage High School, and after a few years in college, he joined the Marine Corps Forces Reserves. Now, he didn't join just any Marine Corps reserve unit; he joined Echo Company, 4th Recon Battalion--the premier cold weather recon unit in the U.S. Marine Corps, reserve or active. How do I know? Because I was serving in that unit with Chief Doll for 5 years. As a matter of fact, I was Justin's platoon commander. Now, he laughingly describes himself as my Marine Corps disciplinary challenge. I don't remember him as a disciplinary challenge; I remember him as a fine marine and a great NCO who did a really good job with Echo Company.
In 1996, he was in the Reserves at that time, and he got a job with the APD. A lot of the marines in Alaska join our law enforcement, which is another great path into service. He didn't grow up wanting to be a police officer, but when presented with an opportunity to serve his community as he was serving in the Marines, he jumped at it, and he excelled. Throughout the years, he served as a patrol officer, an academy instructor, a motorcycle officer, a SWAT team member, a patrol shift commander. He was on the bomb squad and was a commander of the Homicide and Robbery/Assaults Detective Units. He did it all, and he did it all well.
Here are some of the ways in which his colleagues and his bosses have described him throughout his years in his fitness reports: “Outstanding performance”; “proactive leadership”; “Gives credit where credit is due”; “genuine concern for his fellow officers”; “earned the respect of everybody”; leadership philosophy is to help guide and train up leaders to rise”; “committed to excellence.” Those are his reviewing officers' remarks.
His executive assistant, Gia Currier, talks about how, when people would meet Chief Doll, community members--young kids; it didn't matter--he never introduced himself as “chief.” He would just say:
“Hey, I'm Justin.” She said:
He makes me proud to work at APD, and I am grateful to have had the opportunity to work and learn from him.
It should be noted here that, in the meantime, in 2000, he married fellow police officer Monique, and in so doing, like many of us--certainly, like me--he married up. Like Justin, Monique also rose through the ranks to become one of the APD's top detectives. In fact, she was the lead in catching one of the most sickening serial killers in Alaska's history, Israel Keyes. We are so grateful for her dedication and service to our State and our community.
We have a very unique community in Alaska, in Anchorage. We have earthquakes. Not too far away, we have volcanoes. We have 100-mile-an-hour windstorms. Our moose charge, and our bears attack sometimes. Once, when he was at a national training event with big-city police officers from across the country, he was talking to his fellow police chiefs, over beers, about bears and what was going on in their respective cities. He told the group how just the day before, a brown bear had charged, mauled, and tragically killed an Alaskan resident.
Terry Monahan--at the time, the police chief for New York City--said:
“What? In the city? How do you deal with that?”
By the way, I am pretty sure Justin, when he was telling that story to us, cleaned up the language from the New York City police chief when he recounted that story. But these are the many things that a police chief in Alaska has to deal with, has to be ready for, and has to be able to lead on.
Like all cities, we have had serious problems with crime. As a matter of fact, in 2017, right when Justin took over as the chief for the Anchorage Police Department, my hometown of Anchorage was going through a very serious, major crime spree. Violent crime was way up. Homicides were breaking records. Property crime and vehicle crime were way, way up. Justin got to work. He focused on making sure his officers had the training they needed to do their jobs. His goal was “to set them up for success and let them be successful.” His motto: “One Team, One Mission.” It sounds a lot like a marine: “One Team, One Fight.” He put a focus on engaging with the community. He organized the beats so that the officers got to know the people in their areas and patrolled those same areas during the course of their time. He brought back walking beats in the downtown area. He and his officers attended community council meetings and joined the communities throughout the entire city in smaller gatherings.
Now, as I mentioned, Anchorage is a big city in terms of area, but in a lot of ways, it is really a small town. Word gets around. When you get to know your police officer, you trust your police officer, and you begin to work with that person to make your community safer. That was Justin's philosophy, and that is what started to happen. At its heart, community policing is not more complicated than that, according to Justin, Chief Doll. Getting to know one another, respecting one another, trusting one another--that is how communities become safe.
He also worked on forming partnerships with the Department of Justice, the Attorney General's Office, and the FBI, which doesn't always happen in other localities across the country. Again, Anchorage is a big city and a small town. Federal agents were also having their cars stolen. They had friends whose houses were getting broken into. This crime spree became personal for everybody, and everybody started to work together--with Chief Doll in the lead to solve it. Again, word got around. All of it--training, empowering police officers, working with the Feds, community engagement--started to work.
We still have challenges, no doubt, in Anchorage, but since the time Justin Doll started, homicides have gone down almost 50 percent. The rates of property crimes and other violent crimes have also come down. That is a win. Mostly, it is a win for the people of Alaska, for the people of Anchorage. So Justin is leaving the department a winner, and he is also leaving the department with good memories. That was important to him.
There are challenges, and he recognizes those. Burnout, he said, is a problem, particularly these days. He didn't want to get that, and he hopes his fellow officers don't get that. According to Justin--he said: “The world's a little insane right now when it comes to law enforcement,” and he sees for himself what that does to the morale of his officers. He has experienced how disheartening it is to have the whole force, not just in Alaska but across the country--these are hundreds of thousands of good police officers across our nation who have very, very stressful jobs--being disparaged because of the horrific actions of a few.
Across the nation, he said:
“We have completely lost sight of the fact that there are so many people doing a good job keeping communities safe every day. These are people who really want to do a good job and take care of the people and citizens around them.”
We should remember that, especially during this week, National Police Week, when we remember the sacrifices of so many of our frontline heroes.
Justin and Monique, his wife, will be leaving the force permanently in June. The current acting chief is Kenneth McCoy--also a very impressive officer. We are all rooting for Chief McCoy. Of course, we are rooting for Justin and his future endeavors. As we are for all of our police officers across the country, we are thankful for Chief Doll's service--fulfilling his sacred duty--for keeping us safe, and for keeping our communities whole.
So, Justin, one more time, congratulations on a great job. Congratulations on being our Alaskan of the Week.
Semper Fi.
# # #
Next Article Previous Article
