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Monte LaVelle Chitty, age 62, was arrested on April 5 in a small town in Texas by state police and U.S. Marshals, after attempting to flee child-abuse related charges in the Florida Keys. He was arrested in March and charged with two felonies involving a 15-year-old girl from the Baptist church he was leading in Marathon, Florida. Those include sexual battery and lewd and lascivious molestation, and a misdemeanor of contributing to the delinquency of a minor.Chitty was also a former Alaska Village Public Safety Officer in the Aleutian region for several years and a pastor in Cold Bay for a short period. He moved to Alaska and began leading the Cold Bay Chapel in 2010.
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Dustin Ruckman, 23, will face an Unalaska jury in late August for counts of manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide and reckless driving.
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Diana Rentaria has been attending hearings, arraignments and trial calls for nearly five years, in hopes of eventually finding justice in a criminal case involving the death of her 18-year-old daughter Kiara R. Haist and another Unalaska teen. In May 2019, Dustin Ruckman, a high schooler at the time, drove his truck off of Unalaska’s Ulakta Head Cliff. Haist and 16-year-old Karly McDonald were ejected from the vehicle and killed as the pickup descended nearly 1,000 feet down the mountain. From that time on, Rentaria says she has been in limbo, trying to adapt to her new life without the child she used to call “Kiwi.” “You just try to live in the world as that other person you're supposed to be,” Rentaria said. “But at the end of the day, you go home and you wonder, ‘Are you okay? Are you hungry? Are you cold? Can I see you in the moon if I stare at the moon long enough?’” Jan. 17 would have been Haist’s 23rd birthday.
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Former Unalaska police chief Jay King has come under fire at his new position as police chief in Prosser, WA. He’s facing accusations of creating a toxic workplace, similar to accusations described in four lawsuits brought against the police department in Unalaska when King was chief.
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A conversation with USAFV's M. Lynn Crane about patterns of abuse, how people can spot the signs, and ways community members can support one another while processing trauma.
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A former St. Paul police chief was convicted Tuesday of sexually abusing a minor, according to the State of Alaska. A jury convicted Nicholas Hunnicutt of sexual abuse of a minor in the second degree for inappropriately touching a 14-year-old.
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The Yakov E. Netsvetov School in Atka evacuated classes Tuesday after the district received a bomb threat, just one of several schools that received threats throughout the state.
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The Unalaska City School District was not among the schools that received bomb threats Tuesday. The Aleutians East Borough School District was similarly unaffected.
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Faizar Cayron moved to Unalaska in 2013, and graduated from Unalaska High School in 2017, according to Unalaska Fire Chief Ben Knowles. He worked for the water division of the city’s Department of Public Utilities and coached local Native Youth Olympics athletes.
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The trial for a criminal case involving a fatal 2019 vehicle crash in Unalaska won't happen this summer.
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The Alaska State Troopers arrested Christopher Mitchell, a 36-year-old Washington resident, for an outstanding warrant as he was traveling to Sand Point, at which time they say they found nearly $100,000 worth of fentanyl and methamphetamine.
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Unalaska police say Francisco “Frankie” Garcia Santos, 40, provided pills containing fentanyl to Kieran Sean McCulley. McCulley, 32, was a crew member on the F/V Bulldog and died of an overdose when the boat was docked in Unalaska in January. Santos was arrested May 3, following an investigation by local police, the Coast Guard Investigative Service, and other federal agencies that Simms declined to name.