Photo: Anchorage Assemblyman Keith McCormick raised questions Tuesday night about at least one reported use of a drone by police in Anchorage that was missing from a required report.
By SUZANNE DOWNING
Sept. 16, 2026 – The Anchorage Police Department acknowledged Tuesday that at least one police drone deployment was missing from its legally required public report, prompting the Anchorage Assembly to delay action and order the matter back for review.
The omission surfaced after Assemblyman Keith McCormick said a constituent showed him a police report stating that a drone had been flown during a police case, although the deployment did not appear in APD’s annual unmanned-aircraft report.
“I’ve seen with my eyes a report from the constituent that said a drone was flown,” McCormick told the Assembly.
McCormick said the discrepancy raised questions about whether APD was complying with municipal reporting requirements, particularly because the submitted report contained monthslong gaps and other missing information.
The administration subsequently confirmed that the drone had been used and said the deployment would be added to a revised report.
Municipal Manager Bill Falsey attributed the omission to APD’s recordkeeping system. He said officers manually logged drone deployments in an Excel spreadsheet kept in Microsoft Teams and that the system had experienced a glitch.
“They lost this item in that report,” Falsey said.
Falsey said APD was reviewing its records to determine whether anything else had been omitted. He characterized the missing entry as a technological problem and said there had been no attempt to conceal the flight.
The administration asked the Assembly to let the original report die and allow APD to return with a new version at the Oct. 6 meeting. Falsey said the department had continued submitting data in a format developed in 2019 that had previously been accepted, but conceded that the report needed to comply more fully with municipal code.
“Effectively, we’re asking for a mulligan,” Falsey said. “We’ll be back to you with a new drone report at the next meeting.”
McCormick resisted disposing of the original report. He moved to postpone it to Oct. 6 so that the deficient version would remain before the Assembly and could be compared with the promised replacement.
“We don’t know how many other reports are missing,” McCormick said. “We need to keep this on the table.”
His concern was shared by other members. Assemblywoman Erin Baldwin Day asked how many similar omissions might exist and whether deployments connected to open criminal investigations would still appear in the revised public report.
The administration said drone deployments should be listed even when an investigation remains open, although information that could compromise a case may be withheld.
Municipal Attorney Eva Gardner said the roughly 40 pages provided in response to McCormick’s records request were redacted because the material concerned an open criminal investigation and prosecution. Releasing the unredacted information could jeopardize the investigation.
The Assembly voted 8-3 to postpone AIM 139-2026 until Oct. 6. Following a parliamentary clarification, the chair said the original motion to postpone the report indefinitely would remain pending and travel with the item when it returns.
The dispute comes as the Assembly separately considers AO 2026-108(S), a broader surveillance-technology ordinance addressing APD’s Real-Time Crime Center, automated license-plate readers, camera networks and surveillance contracts. The proposal notes that Anchorage already regulates unmanned aircraft and would increase Assembly oversight and reporting requirements for several surveillance systems.
