After a 16-year-old girl was shot and killed by police on Tuesday night, Anchorage, Alaska’s mayor promised changes. It was the city’s sixth officer-involved shooting this year and the fourth fatal one.
At the time, Mayor Suzanne LaFrance said, “We cannot and will not accept this as the new normal in Anchorage.” “We lost a young person in our community who should have been starting her first day of school today.”
In a news gathering on Wednesday, LaFrance told the teen’s family he was sorry.
“As a mom of a 16-year-old, I’m terrible that such a young life was lost in our community,” LaFrance said. Happy Easter to Easter Leafa’s family. I’m so sorry for your loss. This girl should have felt safe in our neighborhood, and you should have spent more time with her.
A police statement says that officers were called to an apartment building where someone was allegedly threatening others with a knife. The girl didn’t drop the knife when the police came, so two of them fired. When the girl got to the hospital, she was already dead.
But when Easter Leafa’s family talked to KTUU about what happened, they gave a more thorough and upsetting account of what happened.
Rosalie Tialavea, Leafa’s older sister, told how the cops came into the apartment with their guns drawn and didn’t ask about Leafa’s age or who lived there, even though Leafa’s mother was there and there were other children, including babies, in the house.
The people told Tialavea and me to go into the room and stay out of their way. “They said yes, because they know how my daughter is and how she doesn’t like to talk to people. They told me no when I asked.
Tialavea said Leafa was an “overthinker” who had emotional breaks from time to time. She was sitting on the porch with a blanket over her head the night of the event. The family thought they could talk her out of holding the knife, so they tried to help, but the cops told them to stay out of the way.
Leafa’s family said she didn’t speak English very well, and when the cops told her to drop the knife she was holding by her side, they said it didn’t take long for them to shoot.
“She made one move, a very small move,” Tialavea said. “They shot her three times…” They had to fire another shot because they saw her fall after the second one.
Leafa’s family told us that she and her mother had just moved from American Samoa to Anchorage to get a better education. This week, Leafa was set to start her junior year of high school at Bettye Davis East High School.
“She doesn’t know a lot.” She moved in yesterday. “This is not at all like home,” Tialavea said. “So with them coming at her like that, and shooting her like that, it’s very heartbreaking.”
Leafa’s family remembers her as someone who “loved to sing” and treated her nieces and nephews like they were her own.
“Out of all the options you had, the only option you had was a gun?” This question was asked of the cops by Leafa’s other sister Faialofa Dixon.
Dixon went on, “At this point we want justice because that was wrong.” “They should have asked when they first got there.” Instead, they came in ready and looked like they were ready to kill her.
April, Leafa’s mother, spoke through tears, “They took our girl’s life.” She also said she felt bad for her grandkids, who had to see the same thing.
A few hours before LaFrance apologized to the family, KTUU released raw body camera video of the May shooting death of Kristopher Handy by police. The cops told reporters at first that Handy pointed a long gun at them before they shot him, but security video showed that Handy did not do that. The videos show that at least ten shots were fired before Handy fell down and died at the scene.
The state had said last month that the four Anchorage police officers who shot and killed Handy were “legally justified.” This was reported by KTUU. Handy’s family, on the other hand, told KTUU that they were angry and that the police department should have talked to them more.
In June, Tyler May, 21, died after being shot by cops, but different accounts of what happened are being told. A police officer shot and killed 58-year-old Lisa Fordyce-Blair during a fight that same month.
Following Leafa’s death and the five previous officer-involved killings, LaFrance and Anchorage Chief of Police Sean Case announced a set of actions on Wednesday. These include a separate investigation into Leafa’s death and the policies and procedures of the Anchorage police department, the creation of a community advisory group, and changes to the police force’s departments. There will also be a public report that summarizes the results of all 15 years of officer-involved killings.
Anchorage is Alaska’s most popular city; the 2020 Census found that more than 291,000 people lived there.
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