Two Alaska State Troopers have been charged with assault after they beat, stunned and used a police dog on an innocent man in a case of mistaken identity. 

Sargent Joseph Miller, 49, and Canine handler Jason Woodruff, 42, were charged with fourth-degree misdemeanor assault after they caused serious injuries to 37-year-old Ben Tikka. 

Charging documents said the troopers were on the lookout for Garrett Tikka, who was wanted for failing to serve a 10-day sentence for driving with a revoked license. 

On May 24, the accused duo assumed that had gotten hold of Garrett after they found a SUV parked in the Kenai Peninsula community of Soldotna, southwest of Anchorage. 

But instead of Garrett, the man inside the vehicle was his cousin, Ben. 

When they approached the vehicle, both men saw Ben in the back and ordered him to get out of the car, citing a warrant for his arrest. 

After he did not respond, Miller notified Ben that he was going to pepper spray the inside of the truck if he refused to come out.

‘Tikka — either you come out or we’re going to bust out your window and send in the dog to bite you’, Miller told the innocent man according to court documents. 

As Ben continued to refuse to come out and repeatedly told the officers that there was no warrant for him, Miller allegedly broke a back window of the car as Woodruff supposedly threatened to send a police dog into the truck. 

The filing states that Miller went on to unleash a can of pepper spray into the vehicle- causing Ben to scream and ultimately open the car door. 

As the victim fell out on to the ground, Miller allegedly kicked him in the shin and struck the back of his head or neck with his fist. 

Court documents state Miller then deployed a stun gun and in the process, stepped on Ben’s head –  pushing it into the ground where the broken glass from the window remained.

The filing states that Miller went on to unleash a can of pepper spray into the vehicle- causing Ben to scream and ultimately open the car door

Body camera images show Ben lying on the ground next to the black truck with blood on his forehead and the dog leaping onto him

As he screamed, ‘What are you doing?’, Miller stunned him in the back and the canine bit him in his abdomen. 

Body camera images show Ben lying on the ground next to the black truck with blood on his forehead and the dog leaping onto him. 

‘My hands are behind my back, sir, please stop. Please, stop you guys I am not a criminal,’ Ben allegedly told the officers as the dog pounced on him. 

But despite pleas, the lawsuit states that Woodruff continued to give the bite command – leading to Ben’s face and head to bleed profusely. 

Court documents noted that at no point did either of the accused ask for Ben’s full name and instead only addressed him by Tikka during the encounter. 

James Cockrell, commissioner of the Alaska Department of Public Safety confirmed in a recent news conference that both troopers had been placed on administrative leave and he was the one to refer their cases for a criminal investigation

As a result of the incident, Ben was left with an open bite on his left arm, multiple fractures and lacerations on his triceps and head. 

James Cockrell, commissioner of the Alaska Department of Public Safety confirmed in a recent news conference that both troopers had been placed on administrative leave and he was the one to refer their cases for a criminal investigation. 

‘I was totally sickened by what I saw. I’ve been with this department for 33 years, and I’ve never seen any action like this before. 

‘It’s hard for me to equate how this has affected me and other troopers that wear this uniform,’ he said. 

Woodruff and Miller will be arraigned in court on September 10 in Kenai. 

“Out of the Dark”

By Marian Elliott; Cirque Press, 2024; 303 pages; $15.

A woman suffers the loss of her 19-year-old son and falls into a near-paralyzing depression. Her husband leaves their home in Long Island, New York, and moves to Florida, forbidding her to accompany him. He insists that she wants to visit relatives teaching in Toksook Bay, Alaska, and buys a camper for the trip. Accompanied by her son’s elderly shepherd-collie mix, she sets out on a road trip, unsure of where or how far she might go and really wanting only to join her husband in Florida.

This is the disquieting start to a story labeled memoir, told by Wasilla resident Marian Elliott. Memoirs generally employ an “I” to tell a true story, but “Out of the Dark” features a main character named Jeanne, an apparent stand-in for the author. (To avoid confusion, the book might have been called an autobiographical novel, based on the writer’s life but with the freedom to change identities and employ details and conversations to meet the story’s demands. There are other distinctions between memoirs and fiction, but the author must have had her reasons for choosing a third-person perspective.)

In any case, Elliott has told a compelling story with several angles. The first third of the book centers on the tragedy of losing a child to a senseless accident, the family’s inability to talk of the young man or his death, and the failing marriage. (As Jeanne learns when she finally attends a grief support group, a majority of marriages falter after such a tragedy.) Jeanne suffers emotional and mental anguish, worsened by her husband blaming her, without reason, for the death and otherwise undermining her sense of reality. He proves to be a champion of gaslighting and manipulation: “Do you have any idea how lucky you are? I know people who would give anything to go to Alaska. I wish I were going.”

Much of the remaining book is essentially a road trip, as Jeanne and the dog Gulliver, to whom she is devoted, travel together. Beginning in September, they first tour through a region she actually wants to visit — Canada’s Maritime Provinces. She seeks out ocean views and other restorative places. A single woman with an old dog draws attention, and she readily makes friends with other campers, residents, and a philosophical hitchhiker who asks, “Did you ever wonder if you met yourself on the road in a strange place, you’d recognize who you were?” The year was 1980, and her own trust and kindness seemed to invite that of others. She runs into the same travelers repeatedly, accepts invitations to visit others in their homes, and maintains correspondences for months and perhaps years afterward. When she mentions Alaska, some she meets are excited by the idea but most raise their eyebrows, especially about heading north so late in the season. Toksook Bay? She doesn’t seem to know, herself, that the Yup’ik village is not just “Alaska” but on an island far to the west, facing the Bering Sea.

Halfway through the book, three weeks after leaving her home, she’s firmly against continuing to Alaska. “She needed to make Gary (her husband) understand the Alaska trip was not going to happen.” But after a stop at her daughter’s college near Buffalo, N.Y., her husband on a phone call demands that she continue to Alaska and she agrees to drive as far as the Canadian Rockies.

Time on the road and in the narrative speeds up considerably after that. Jeanne learns that her husband has another woman in Florida — something readers might have deduced much earlier. “The only choice she could see was to go forward. Why not keep driving until she figured things out? Who knew what the road had to offer?” She drives up the Alaska Highway, where she runs out of gas and is rescued by kind men. She drives through whiteout snowstorms. In Whitehorse the dog has a medical emergency, other kind people help her, and she rushes on to Fairbanks to reach a veterinarian.

To tell much more of the story would give too much away, but suffice it to say that the old dog’s condition keeps Jeanne in Alaska until spring. She does actually get to Toksook Bay, surprised by the small plane, the numerous stops in and around Bethel, and her relatives’ request to bring a box of fruits and vegetables.

Throughout her travels, even as she continues to grieve for her son, Jeanne finds much to love about the world, in people and in nature. When a raven flies over her head in the quiet of British Columbia, the woman from New York is stunned to hear, for the first time in her life, the sound of a bird’s wings. Later, she’s entranced by the song and sight of a dipper (water ouzel), “flying just above the surface of the water following the curve of the creek. He settled on a boulder downstream and with the burbling waters rushing around him, he sang out again an ebullient medley in whistles and trills.”

In the end, “Out of the Dark” is a story of trust, self-knowledge, and healing. The journey with Jeanne/Elliott satisfies not only as a road trip marked by the kindnesses of strangers; readers will delight in the company of a woman traveler who grows into the self she’s in fact happy to recognize.

[Book review: A reluctant memoirist reflects on a tragic family story — and considers forgiveness]

[Book review: Intimate and creative, Jennifer Brice’s long-evolving essays present her sharp mind at work]

[Book review: Riveting memoir reveals lifetime of lessons from teacher’s time in Alaska village]

The Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities wants to hire a private snowplow operator to help clear roads and sidewalks this winter in Anchorage, Mat-Su and the Kenai Peninsula.

The past two winters in Southcentral Alaska have been marked by heavy, and record, snowfalls. Many roadways went unplowed for days in Anchorage last November and December, closing schools and wreaking havoc on families and local businesses. State officials say they’re better prepared now for extreme snowfalls.

Last winter, the state transportation department used a private contractor for the first time to help clear roads and sidewalks in Anchorage. This year, the department wants to extend that as-needed private snowplow service across Southcentral Alaska.

Justin Shelby, administrative operations manager for the department’s central region, said last year’s contract was awarded to SmithSons, a family-owned snowplow operator based out of Anchorage. He said SmithSons was called out seven times to assist in snow removal at a cost to the state of nearly $94,000.

“It was definitely a help,” Shelby said.

The state transportation department has used private snowplow contractors in other parts of Alaska, he said. A private operator for Southcentral Alaska would help the department avoid calling on emergency contractors during heavy and unexpected snowfalls, he said.

“Ideally, our state crews are going to be able to get to all this, and we don’t need to activate these contracts, but in the event that we have a large snowfall, equipment breakdowns, staff shortages, we want to have that. We want to have that capability to call our contractor,” Shelby said.

An invitation to bid on the state’s pending snowplow contract was issued Aug. 2. A contract is set to be awarded Sept. 10 that would run through May. There is the option to renew the contract for four additional one-year terms.

Anchorage is divided into a mishmash of roads that are maintained separately, some by the state and others by the Municipality of Anchorage. Around half of the city’s roadways are the responsibility of the state to clear.

Shelby said the state’s snowplow fleet is generally equipped for high-speed roads like highways. The contractor would largely assist in snow removal on priority three and four roads — a designation used for roadways that are less-traveled and narrower than highways, he added.

The contractor would be expected to clear roads to a relatively passable condition within 24 hours, according to the state’s invitation to bid.

The 89-page document describes which roads and sidewalks the contractor could be called to plow, including stretches of Huffman Road and parts of Eagle River Road. The document does not list a price for the contract. Instead, it states that it would be “contingent upon legislative appropriation.”

The Legislature approved an operating budget in May that contained a line item for $915,500 “for statewide contracted snow removal.” Shelby said he anticipates that around $500,000 of that appropriation would be used for the new Southcentral snowplow contract.

This year, legislators also appropriated an additional $1.3 million to recruit more snowplow drivers in Southcentral Alaska and $250,000 for a new snow storage site. Gov. Mike Dunleavy vetoed both appropriations. A statement posted online explaining the veto said it was needed to “preserve general funds for savings and fiscal stability.”

Sen. Bill Wielechowski, an Anchorage Democrat who pushed for that additional funding, was disappointed by the veto. He said Tuesday that he had not heard about the state’s pending contract. He was skeptical about the benefits of hiring a private operator.

“You’ve got to factor in the profit that they’re going to make, and it’s usually not a cost savings to the taxpayers,” he said.

Rep. Zack Fields, D-Anchorage, questioned how much it would cost per mile for a private contractor to plow a road compared to the state’s snowplow fleet.

Shelby said a relative cost-per-mile calculation “would take us quite a bit of time and effort to put together. But to be clear, this is to address responsiveness, not capacity.”

“Increasing staffing and equipment doesn’t eliminate the likely possibility of another major snow event, staffing shortages, equipment breakdowns, etc. impacting our operations in the short term. This contract gives us the ability to respond quickly by calling on contractors for support,” he said.

Last winter, state transportation officials partly blamed delays in clearing Anchorage roads on a 70% vacancy rate for mechanics who service the state’s snowplow fleet. The current vacancy rate for those mechanics in Anchorage is 22%, state officials said.

Overall, Shelby said the state transportation department is better prepared for heavy snowfalls this winter compared to last year.

“More equipment is operational and ready for the beginning of winter than last year — and generally, all equipment is in better readiness condition than last year, due to better preparedness and lower vacancy rates, and staff with the experience of the extreme events we had last year,” he said by email.