This work session, held from 10:40 to 11:40 a.m. on August 21, 2026, focused on the Anchorage Police Department’s Real-Time Crime Center (RTCC) and a pending cooperative purchase (AM524 2026) from Thundercat Technology for equipment. The item was postponed from August 4 and 18 meetings and will be on the September 1, 2026 assembly agenda. Chief Case led the presentation, addressing privacy, technology deployment, and the specific purchase.
Okay, everyone, let's get started. Um, this is our first work session of the day. Uh, today is Friday, August 21st. We are noticed from 1040 to 1140 a.m. and have a couple things after this. This is a work session on uh broadly on real-time crime center uh with APD and more specifically AM524 2026, um, a cooperative purchase from Thundercat Technology, et cetera, for some equipment for said uh real-time crime center, which was postponed from our August uh 4th and August 18th meetings uh will be on our agenda for September 1st. So uh we'll do introductions and then uh I'll say that my intent is to mainly turn this over to Chief Case to give a presentation, and then I will be managing the queue. Um so starting with members, uh Mr. Martinez. George Martinez, Cameron Perez for deal. Donald Handlin, Scout. Anna Brawley. And on the phone, we have uh Ms. Silvers and any other members on the phone. Okay, not hearing any. Uh, we're also joined by members of the administration, members of the public, uh clerk, assembly council, and uh legislative services and chief case. So I will again turn it over. We have a presentation today, and uh go ahead, Chief Case. All right, thank you, everyone. Thank you, ma'am. Uh, I wanna start by just backing us up to a little over two years ago when we started talking about technology at the Anchorage Police Department. Uh we we did not hesitate for one second to talk about our goal was to be the most technologically advanced police department in the country. There's a whole host of reasons for that. One of which is uh even being fully staffed, if we had all of our officers on the street, the expectation, demands that we all have to include the police department of how we police this community and how the Anchorage Police Department is involved in this community. 415 officers isn't isn't touching it. Uh there has to be ways that we interact, engage with the community and provide services outside of straight law enforcement services that uh that uses something so that we can use the 415 people when they are fully staffed. And technology is one of those pieces. Um where we're at today in that adventure, and I think it's really important that we understand uh the police department's direction. When we look at technology, we have a document that we follow internally. Uh that are some guiding principles on how we implement, how we look at technology, how we test technology. Um, think of it as like the values that we uh keep when we're looking at bringing technology into the organization. Uh, we are the Anchorage Police Department, your Anchorage Police Department is a leader when it comes to technology in this country. We are not following behind other agencies and blindly buying technology and utilizing it. Currently, this week, we have one of our deputy chiefs that's presenting at a real-time crime center conference. He's gonna come home for two days and he's gonna go out to another technology conference. And why is he doing that? Because the work that the Anchorage Police Department is leading this country right now. There are police departments and technology companies right now that's working with APD and watching what we're doing, and they're making determinations and they're making policies based on some of the things that we're doing. So we're getting ahead of the getting ahead of the program. Uh and and I tell you that. So, number one, I think it's something that we can be proud of. Number two, uh, you have a great resource at your hand with people inside of the Anchorage Police Department that knows a whole heck of a lot of not only what's going on within the police department, but can tell you a whole heck of a lot what's going on around the country and law enforcement in general, how we use policing or how we use technology. You have all seen this, but I will always start off presentations like this. Uh, I mentioned that we have a document uh that we utilize when we look at new technology and you know, technology is an extension of everything else we do. And we are a vision and values-based organization. This is what we follow in everything that we do. Uh unfortunately, as great as artificial intelligence technology is exist today. I tried, doesn't work. I can't type into AI right now and ask it how many times have I said publicly the right to privacy, uh, because I've said it probably more than anybody else publicly in the last two and a half years. It has been a fundamental focus of what we do and how we do it when it comes to technology.