Was the police shooting of an Anchorage teenager justified? The Anchorage police chief says yes, the special investigators agree

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) – A day after the police officer who shot and killed a 16-year-old Anchorage girl was acquitted by investigating prosecutors, Alaska’s news source spoke with Anchorage Police Chief Sean Case for his side of the matter.

Content Warning: This article and accompanying video contain details that some readers may find disturbing.

There have been a total of five fatal shootings by APD officers and eight officer-involved shootings in Anchorage this year.

Anchorage police responded to a 911 call after one of Easter Leafa’s sisters called them and reported that Easter had a knife.

The sister reported to police that “Easter Leafa was crazy and tried to stab her with a knife because VL didn’t do what Easter Leafa wanted,” the summary says.

When the police arrive, the family calmly opens the door and lets them into the house. Police say they are unsure if Easter is in the house.

At the time, she was on the balcony, facing away from the officers and wrapped in a blue blanket.

Ten people live in the two-bedroom, one-bathroom apartment, including two grandchildren.

The family has repeatedly said Easter did not speak English fluently after she moved to Alaska from American Samoa in the spring to join an extended family network of aunts, cousins, sisters and uncles who live in Anchorage.

The report from the Department of Law’s Office of Special Prosecutions does not mention language as a possible obstacle during the encounter.

“Obviously the video shows that there is a different language spoken among the family members, but the communication that the officers had at that point with the people they were speaking to appeared to be very clear communication and no one has at any point in time.” “We pointed out that the people we were trying to communicate with had difficulty hearing and understanding English,” Case said during an interview Tuesday morning at Anchorage police headquarters.

The report also states that the family continued to ask to speak to Easter, but was refused and would not go into the two bedrooms of the small apartment.

Asked whether stressful scenes – with many people in crowded apartments – were an unusual situation for police, Case said no.

“We see that a lot,” Case said.

So what made this situation different from a crime scene that police typically encounter on a given call?

“I don’t think it made a difference because we have to navigate the environment we’re in. I think the difference is that when the officers had contact, they had to work with this limited space as well as the threat of someone coming at them with a knife. And that, as you know, is different from a lot of different calls that we’ve handled in similar circumstances, in terms of domestic disputes and confined spaces,” Case said.

Case was also asked if he thought the shooting was justified.

“I think that the special prosecutor’s analysis of the incident is what they do and therefore it is not my job to tell them [they] didn’t do their job properly, and you know, their assessment was obvious – it was justified and I agree with that assessment,” Case said.

Another question was the short time police were at the apartment before Easter was shot, and why police opened a sliding glass door to speak with Easter instead of allowing more time for additional officers to arrive to help move family members should help.

When officers shot and killed 58-year-old Lisa Fordyce-Blair earlier this summer, the SWAT team had spent hours with her before the shooting.

On June 19, 2024 at 4:39 p.m., Anchorage police responded to a disturbance involving a weapon after Fordyce-Blair’s neighbors called police.

An updated police report shows an officer-involved shooting at 2 a.m. June 20.

So why was it necessary to deal with Easter when in a separate police shooting the person had hours to respond?

“I think part of the problem is waiting. I mean, we get calls like this or similar ones about domestic violence on a regular basis. And so when there’s some level of threat, automatically going to a – let’s say a SWAT operation – that’s not a reasonable response. SWAT operations themselves are viewed by the court as a use of force. And I’m sure if you’ve looked at the way SWAT teams have been deployed across the country over the last decade, you know that the goal is to reduce that level of response because you know, we show up with a lot of equipment, a lot of equipment, and that in and of itself can lead to escalation, and so we have to evaluate whether that escalation is going to be appropriate because it rises to that level or that utility There are various means to actually trying to de-escalate the situation,” Case said.

Case said there has been an increase in violence, drugs and mental health problems in Anchorage, but APD has not yet provided Alaska’s News Source with statistics to support that statement.

Case also said the APD is down to 60 officers and only five people are on the mental health crisis team. He said tripling that number would be ideal.

“I always say I could triple the size of this unit and still have work for them,” Case said.

The next phase is an administrative investigation.

“As the public is aware, we will have the internal investigation conducted by an outside investigator who will primarily look at policies within the police department,” Case said. “Those are traditionally two phases that we do, the criminal and the administrative, and what we’re adding to that process is kind of a third phase or a third level where we look at the balance between policy training and performance in that Phase, we’re really talking specifically about the decisions made that could have been made differently, that may not be a policy violation, but could potentially impact the future outcomes of these types of incidents.

“So my main focus is how we balance or review our training, how our policies are applied and what the performance is on the ground, even if it is outside of the administrative and criminal area.”

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