Dutch Harbor, Alaska: The police blotter read 'round the world

DUTCH HARBOR, ALASKA — It was shortly after 7 in the morning 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?

"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 parts of the globe.

"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 website.

"Two weeks ago, I heard from the Mensa chapter in Pennsylvania. Or was it Tennessee?" said Webb, referring to the social network for those of unusually robust intelligence. "They said the person that writes this police thing is probably the only person in Unalaska that qualifies for Mensa."

A literate, witty and 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 raucous but 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 a cold January night. "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."