Surveillance video captures deadly police shooting of Anchorage teen

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) - Alaska’s News Source has obtained home surveillance video showing the Anchorage apartment balcony where a 16-year-old girl was fatally shot by Anchorage police on Aug. 13.

“This right here, that glint is the knife,” the woman who has the home video said. Alaska’s News Source is not identifying the woman because of her safety concerns.

This story offers a timeline comparison of the surveillance video versus Anchorage Police Department statements, news releases and interviews with the owner of the video.

“I was horrified. She wasn’t aggressive,” the woman said.

At 11:32 p.m. on Aug. 13, according to a news release, patrol officers responded to an apartment complex on the 4800 block of East 43rd Avenue for a disturbance with a weapon. It had been reported that a female was threatening others inside the apartment with a knife.

The home surveillance video begins at 11:40:00 p.m. The grainy black and white video is positioned inside a window facing the parking lot of Greenbriar Apartments off Tudor Road. The Leafa apartment can be seen in the distant background across the parking lot.

At 11:41:00 p.m. the home video shows a light source, presumably from a flashlight, illuminating the balcony from below. According to the family, this is where Easter was located when police arrived, holding a knife and covered by a blanket.

A few minutes later, at 11:45:07 p.m., flashlights can be seen from inside the apartment as well as the black silhouette of Easter Leafa standing on the balcony.

Thirty-six seconds later, 11:45:43 p.m., more police flashlights throw light from inside the apartment as seen on the home surveillance video.

“Officers opened the screen door and made contact with Easter. They asked her to remove the blanket and stand up and drop the knife,” Anchorage Police Chief Sean Case said at a news conference earlier this week. “She stood up. She took the blanket off, and she turned around. She was holding a knife in her right hand. Easter then approached the officers with the knife approximately at her leg level.”

As heard and seen on the video at 11:45:52 p.m., the sound of four gunshots breaks the silence of the night, and Leafa can be seen falling to the floor of the balcony.

“One officer fired three rounds with his handgun, and the other officer fired one round from a less lethal projectile,” Case said.

On the surveillance video, Easter cannot be seen lunging at officers nor does the video illustrate any sudden or exaggerated movements before the shooting.

“She is just standing on the balcony talking to them,” the woman with the video said. “Then there’s four pops and she falls back. That was terrifying to me.”

At APD’s second news conference on the shooting, Case was asked if Easter had been aggressive with the officers. APD was also asked to describe what happened between the time Easter was seen by officers standing with the knife at her side and the time officers discharged their weapons.

“The best description I can give is that Easter had the knife in her right hand,” Case said. “She had it little higher than leg height as she walked towards the officers in a confined space.”

From the time the officers were called to the scene by Leafa’s sister to the time of the shooting, approximately 20 minutes passed. The home surveillance video shows approximately five minutes passed as officers were seen positioned with flashlights both below Leafa’s balcony and inside the home.

Before the shooting, Leafa’s family says they pleaded with police to let them talk with the teenager believing they could have coaxed her to drop the knife. Those appeals were not granted, according to the family.

Alaska’s News Source whether it was against police policy or statute for officers to allow the family to speak directly with Easter during police interaction.

“The officers’ actions are currently under investigation by OSP (Office of Special Prosecutions),” Renee Oistad, a Community Relations Specialist with APD, responded by email. “We are going to refrain from commenting further on the dynamics of the call until OSP has concluded their part and issued a decision.”

According to APD’s Policy, Regulations and Procedures Manual, “Officers must understand that deadly force is an extreme measure and should only get used in accordance with the law and as stated in this Policy.”

The shooting of Leafa marked the fourth deadly officer-involved shooting — there have been six total — in the last three months. Leafa was the only one of the four who did not have a gun at the time she was shot by police.

Deciding when to use force is often done under crushing amounts of stress in volatile, changing, dynamic conditions.

Police and the courts say some leeway is necessary when officers must make split-second decisions with life-or-death consequences.

“Objectively reasonable” is a standard set by the Supreme Court in 1989 when it said that a police officer’s use of excessive force must be seen in the context of what reasonable officers would do in the same situation, given the danger and stress of police work.

In the Leafa case, some community members and family have questioned why officers opened the glass door to the balcony to engage at close range with Easter when she didn’t have a gun and no one else in the immediate vicinity appeared to be in danger when police entered the apartment.

Additional questions were posed to police at Monday’s news conference, asking why less lethal force was not officers’ only choice.

The woman who’s camera captured Easter’s death says she wants to get the video to Leafa’s family.

“Anything to help a grieving family,” she said.

Editor’s note: This story has been updated with the correct day that Easter Leafa was shot.

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