An Anchorage police officer accused of crashing his personal vehicle in East Anchorage and leaving the area on foot last week has been charged with operating under the influence, the department said Monday.
Aaron Richwine was placed on administrative leave pending the department’s investigation and any legal proceedings, police said in a statement.
Apart from the department’s announcement, there was little public information available Monday about the arrest. Richwine’s case did not appear in a state database of court records or in a listing of criminal charges filed.
The incident that preceded Richwine’s arrest occurred last Tuesday morning, Anchorage police said.
Officers were called to the 5400 block of Lake Otis Parkway around 8:20 a.m. on Nov. 19 after a caller indicated a vehicle was in the ditch and they believed the driver, who left the area on foot, was impaired, police said. The officers determined the vehicle in the ditch belonged to Richwine, who was off-duty when the crash occurred, police said. They found him at a nearby home and administered standardized field sobriety tests before taking him into custody, police said.
Richwine was processed at the University of Alaska Anchorage’s police department “to protect his privacy as an employee from others in the department and reduce the disruption for on-duty personnel and operations,” the Anchorage Police Department said in a statement.
The university’s police chief was not immediately available to comment Monday afternoon.
Richwine is not in custody. He was released per the bail schedule, police said.
Richwine’s next court appearance is scheduled for January, police said. Charges against him did not yet appear on the Alaska Court System’s public database by Monday afternoon, but will be in the system after his next court appearance, said Shelly Wozniak, spokeswoman for the police department.
Richwine has been with the department for 11 years, Wozniak said.
APD began publicizing all officer arrests earlier this year. That change in policy came after an off-duty officer was charged with driving a patrol car while intoxicated on Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in December 2023.