A man described by residents and police in an Aleutian Islands town as a known drug dealer was turned around at the local airport and run out of town by parents when he arrived from Anchorage Tuesday.
Locals in the East Aleutians Borough community of Sand Point say the incident occurred at about 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, when a nightly PenAir flight arrived in town from Anchorage with the man on board.
In a caption for a Facebook photo of the confrontation posted by resident Carmen Dushkin, she said the incident personifies opposition by locals to a continuing flow of drugs into their communities.
"Sand Point takes a stand to remove known drug dealers," Dushkin wrote. "Team Sand Point will not let you come into our town and corrupt the youth of tomorrow."
The Sand Point incident follows a tradition dating back to Alaska Native tribes of banishing offenders who disturb the peace as a form of punishment, one adopted by Gold Rush-era residents as a "blue ticket" out of town by the first available means of transportation. In a more recent example of an Alaska community expelling a person suspected of but not charged with a crime, tribal officials banned a suspected bootlegger from the village of Akiak in April.
According to Sand Point Police Department officer Michael Livingston, who witnessed the exchange, police couldn't confirm locals' identification of the man as he was not charged with a crime. The man does have a history in the 1,000-person community, which has seen problems with illegal drugs like cocaine, heroin and meth, as well as abuse of prescription drugs.
"Typically, what happens is a drug dealer flies into Sand Point with, say, 1,000 Percocet (oxycodone pain pills) and he has a runner sell them for 150 bucks apiece," Livingston said. "And within a couple weeks, he's leaving town with about $150,000 cash."
Livingston was at the airport to transfer a suspect in an unrelated case onto the PenAir flight to Anchorage. While he was present as a police officer, he says his primary role was to keep the peace and maintain order.
Dushkin was also at the airport to pick up her brother-in-law Tuesday night, when she heard that a group of people were planning to confront the man upon his arrival from the 560-mile flight. She arrived in time to record the incident.
"As soon as he walked into the terminal, they confronted him," Dushkin said. "They walked him straight to the counter, and the townspeople bought his ticket right back, so he wasn't even able to step out of the airport terminal."
Dushkin says locals have seen the man fly into Sand Point for at least the past three or four years, during which he is believed to have distributed drugs, including prescription pills and meth. The group of people who met the man apparently didn't have any clear organization, beyond their shared purpose.
"One of them I stopped, I asked, 'Are you a leader?'" Dushkin said. "And he was like, 'No, we're all leaders; this is like Sand Point people,' so I just said Team Sand Point (on Facebook)."
The broad-based support for confronting the man mirrors what Livingston calls widespread anger among locals at an endless tide of narcotics supplied by visitors.
"The parents of Sand Point are just sick and tired of these drug dealers coming into town, because the drug dealers don't care who they sell the drugs to -- they don't care whether or not they sell them to kids," Livingston said.
When the man entered the terminal, Livingston says he promptly found himself face-to-face with about 10 angry parents.
"Well, I've seen this man get off the plane before and go to various houses in Sand Point, and my impression of him is that he's kind of a shy reserved guy," Livingston said. "When he got off the plane and there was a semicircle of angry people, he seemed to be quite shocked by it and found it a pretty unpleasant situation to be in; I think he was relieved to be able to get back on the plane."
According to Livingston, the man's departure from the airport was met by loud approval as onlookers saw him board the return flight to Anchorage.
"I haven't ever seen anyone marched out of town like this guy was; it was the first time I've seen it," Livingston said. "From the round of applause that the citizens gave, I think that it has been unprecedented in Sand Point, and the citizens were very happy with their results -- they didn't want this alleged drug dealer to be in town peddling drugs to their kids."
Editor's note: The identity of the man who was confronted in Sand Point has been omitted from this story because he was not charged with a crime.
Contact Chris Klint