THENORTHERNLIGHT UNIVERSITY OF ALASKA ANCHORAGE
CRIME ON Anchorage is the fifth most dangerous US city, but rates are dropping
Rape Robbery Aggravated Assault Murder
Year
2006 2007 2008 2009 2010
Population
277,692
By Alden Lee
Assistant Features Editor
Lee Chee Chang stood above Emilio Ramirez and shot him in the parking lot of an east-side
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284,142
280,068 283,300
Muldoon bar, Anchorage police say. Chang’s older brother, Ka Meng Chang, lay dead just yards away on the southbound lane of Muldoon Road, gunned down some time before. Two others, a man with bullet wounds in his arms and Ramirez’s critically injured girlfriend, bled on the premises of J.J.’s Lounge as witnesses scrambled to make sense of what had just happened in the early hours of Oct. 10. This deadly shootout, an ongoing investigation by the Anchorage Police Department, is among the most recent of violent crimes to hit what has been labeled by Forbes as the fifth most dangerous city in the United States. Coupled with a significant number of rapes, aggravated assaults, and robberies, Anchorage boasts a per capita crime rate more than double that of the entire state, and double the national average as well. Forbes’ 2010 list of most dangerous cities in the nation used information compiled in the FBI’s 2010 uniform crime report (UCR), which tallies crime data from the nation’s metropolitan areas, collected from 17,000 law enforcement agencies across the United States and organized to account for population differences and accurate city-to-city comparisons. Forbes drew from
291,826
four different categories of violent crime to compile its list: murder, forcible rape, aggravated assault and robbery. Anchorage ranks fifth in the nation for violent crime, according to the Forbes’ list. Anchorage averaged 813 violent crimes for every 100,000 inhabitants, according to the UCR. Compare this to the national average of 404 violent crimes for every 100,000 inhabitants, Anchorage’s rape rates are the most significant contributors
News.....02
Integrity of process questioned for UAA, UAF DOE funding
D E C L I N E
UAF gets massive expansion for engineering building; no new funds for UAA By Matt Caprioli News Editor
statistician and research collator, says these high rates are heavily by the state’s
that crime influenced remoteness. “Tracking crime in Alaska is a complicated story,” said Reed. “Despite Anchorage’s perceived metropolitan status, our state is a highly isolated rural area compared to the rest of the United States. We’re an island, basically, a large island, so we get a lot of unique situations that can’t be found anywhere else in the nation.” On a national level, violent crime has decreased since 2006. Murder has dropped four percent, rape fell five percent, robbery fell ten percent, and - Lew Reed, APD statistician aggravated assault dropped four percent, according to the UCR. This trend is being reflected across many major to the city’s high crime level. crime cities, including Detroit. In 2010, 264 people were raped Anchorage’s recent crime rates in Anchorage’s population of have followed suit. In a long-term 290,334, according to the UCR. look, Anchorage’s rates have That translates to 0.09 percent appeared to be steady, but the of the city having been forcibly drop from 2009-2010 shows an raped in the past year, compared optimistic reduction. to the national average of 0.02 “There have been increases percent. here and decreases there, but “Rapes and sexual assaults are overall Anchorage crime has kept a persistent challenge for us,” said a rather stable range so far,” said APD Deputy Chief Steve Smith. SEE CRIME PAGE 5 Lew Reed, the APD’s primary
“We’re an island, basically, a large island, so we get a lot of unique situations that can’t be found anywhere else in the nation.”
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Opinion.....07
The former associate dean of UAA’s engineering, Grant Baker, is speaking out against an under the radar, last minute change to UAF’s engineering building. Approved by the Board of Regents during a special session Sept 20, the amendment expands the gross square foot of UAF’s engineering building by 140 percent. There was no additional funding approved for UAA. Baker said the move “makes no sense” because UAA’s School of Engineering is growing at a faster rate, is currently three times smaller than UAF’s facilities, and has had more students since 2006. “You can see that this thing is still strongly controlled by some forces that aren’t in the interest of students,” Baker said. “We have no advocacy really for UAA that will stand up to the statewide administration in Fairbanks, probably for good reason, because when you do you get terminated.” Along with the Dean of Engineering, Rob Lang, Baker was removed from his post on Aug 25. Chancellor Tom Case said the change was necessary because of “internal issues.” Baker is very popular with students and local industry. The UAA School of Engineering Advisory Board, a body of local industry leaders, created a resolution of support for Lang and Baker the day after their dismissal that recognized the “outstanding management of the School of Engineering by this sterling team.” The expansion of UAF’s building comes about a month after Baker and Lang were dismissed. Baker speculated that their dismissal was necessary for UAF’s building to expand.
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Index:
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OCTOBER 18, 2011
SEE PAGE 07
A&E.....B2
Sports......B6
Hunger is closer to home than many would like to think
SEE PAGE 04
Comics.....B10