It was shortly after 7 a.m. when police spotted the man on a bicycle, a smear of blood around his mouth and more dribbling from cuts on his forearms.
But he had an explanation.
An ex-girlfriend “turned me on to vampirism,” he told the officers, but he was ready to put all that behind him. Was there somewhere he could find a priest?
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“Officers advised the man to conceal his predilection, in order to avoid alarming the public,” said the police report, apparently mindful of the trouble that can ensue in a boisterous fishing port when the public gets alarmed.
The weekly police blotter that chronicles the bar fights, eagle attacks, yowling foxes, distraught psychics and dockside melees in Dutch Harbor — part of the small city of Unalaska in the Aleutian Islands, about 800 miles southwest of Anchorage in the Bering Sea — has become a must-read all over Alaska and other far-flung places.
“I got an e-mail not long ago from Scotland, a child psychologist, writing about one of our registered sex offenders,” said publisher Veda Webb of the Unalaska Advertiser, which along with the Dutch Harbor Fisherman posts the stuff of day-to-day life in this town of about 4,000 on its Web site.
A literate, often hilariously calm voice of reason in this outpost of human foibles, the Unalaska police report documents what happens when thousands of fishermen from all over the world descend on one small port for shore leave.
Bunkhouse roommates throw lamps and nightstands at each other. Ethiopian and Somali immigrants engage in obscure tribal disputes. Drunks pass out — in ditches, on bar stools, in other people’s bunks and in unfamiliar living rooms.
“Harbor officer reported shots had been fired at or near the Spit Dock,” said a blotter entry from January. “Officers obtained information suggesting someone on board a … vessel had been firing a gun sporadically over the last week, with several shots coming near pedestrians, vehicles and vessels. … Yuriy Gureev admitted to firing a .22 rifle several times in the last week, allegedly aiming at the Dumpster.”
Sgt. Jennifer Shockley, a wildlife biologist from Texas who joined the Unalaska police force 11 years ago, is the author of the weekly “activity report.”
“What you get basically is drinks, drugs and domestic violence. That’s pretty much our three D’s,” said Shockley.
Shockley has honed the art of understatement in her reports.
Take the one about the bald eagles that lurk on almost every treetop, fence and Dumpster, glaring at passersby.
“Three juvenile boys phoned police and reported they had taken refuge inside a piece of playground equipment because they were in fear of imminent attack by a bald eagle,” the report read. “The suspect eagle hissed and puffed his chest feathers at the responding officer before flying from the area.”
The 13 officers of the Unalaska Department of Public Safety form a dike of relatively friendly body armor and handcuffs poised against the sea of chaos that invariably exists wherever three fishermen have plenty of money and no imminent deadline for getting on a boat.
“A boat comes in with 50 people. You’re a bunch of single guys, or your family’s back in Seattle — what do you do for two days in town?” said Police Chief Jamie Sunderland, who ended up in Dutch Harbor after a 10-year career in Army intelligence as a Russian linguist. “You go play some basketball, you shop for some doodads, and then you go to the bar and drink.”