A Big Mac, flowers and candles honor 16-year-old killed by Anchorage police
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) - What happened the night of Aug. 13 that led to the death of 16-year-old Easter Leafa?
At the family’s invitation, Alaska’s News Source visited the home where Easter was fatally shot on that night by an Anchorage police officer to see the layout of the apartment.
This is a retelling of events from several interviews with the family and news conferences with the Anchorage Police Department, as well as a visit to the apartment.
Easter’s death was the sixth officer-involved shooting in Anchorage since May 13, four of which were deadly over the three-month period.
Easter’s family says she and her mother moved to Anchorage earlier this year from American Samoa to join an extended family network of aunts, cousins, sisters and uncles.
Easter was excited about starting her junior year at Bettye Davis East Anchorage High School, and her family members described Easter as a quiet person who loved to sing and spend time with her nieces and nephews. She was learning to speak better English.
“Just a 16-year-old came to the U.S. looking for a good school and a future, and now she’s gone,” sister Faialofa Dixon said the day after the shooting.
Police responded to Greenbriar Apartments off Tudor Road around 11:30 p.m. on Aug. 13 after her older sister reported that Easter was threatening her and had a knife.
Her sister, Rosalie Tialavea, told Alaska’s News Source that one of her other sisters called police, claiming Easter “came at her and hit her with the knife.”
The two-bedroom Greenbriar Apartments are described on the apartment’s website as 762 to 954 square feet of space.
The living room is listed at 29 feet, 9 inches, by 12 feet, 4 inches.
Inside the apartment at the time of the shooting were 10 people, including Easter and two grandchildren, according to family members.
Several people were sleeping in the apartment’s two bedrooms and Easter’s mother, also named Easter, was on the couch in the living room.
On Aug. 19, APD Chief Sean Case described the knife held by Easter Leafa as being approximately seven inches in length.
Family members say they do not know what type of knife Easter had in hand.
The family says that when one of the sisters answered the apartment’s front door, police had their guns drawn.
“She was a minor, they should have asked questions when they came in,” Dixon said on Aug. 14. “Instead they came in ready, looking like they was ready to shot her down.”
Easter, by all accounts, was outside on the apartment’s balcony, covered with a blanket when police initially arrived.
The family said police asked everyone to move into the apartment’s bedrooms for their safety.
“Over the next several minutes, officers attempted to move the family into a bedroom so that they could isolate Easter and make contact with her,” Case said during Monday’s press conference.
In follow-up emails, Anchorage police were asked by Alaska’s News Source whether it was against police code or statute for officers to allow the family to speak with Easter during the police interaction.
“The officers’ actions are currently under investigation by OSP (Office of Special Prosecutions). We are going to refrain from commenting further on the dynamics of the call until OSP has concluded their part and issued a decision,” Renee Oistad, a Community Relations Specialist with APD, responded by email.
One bedroom door was open, and three people — including Easter’s mother — were watching police from a bedroom doorway as officers were positioned in the apartment’s living room, according to the family.
They say they couldn’t clearly see Easter because one of two curtains was down on the porch’s sliding glass door, obstructing their view.
The family says they begged police to be able to talk with Easter, and a cousin ran to the back of the apartment in an attempt to try to talk with Easter from below the porch’s balcony. The cousin said she was confronted by a police officer and K-9 dog and told to not approach the teen.
“She’s not a social person,” Rosalie Tialavea said on Aug. 14. “We could talk to her. She would drop it, and she would be back to herself any minute, but he denied us.”
According to APD, officers opened the sliding door and made contact with Easter. Officers then gave Easter commands to show “empty open hands.”
Case said Easter then stood up, took the blanket off, and turned toward officers.
According to Case, Easter then approached the officers with a knife in hand, approximately at her leg level.
Case said officers commanded Leafa to drop the knife — a command police say she ignored.
Loud pleas from the family to police asking to be able to talk with Easter continued from the bedrooms, according to family members.
On Aug. 17, police released the name of the officer who fatally fired his gun in the shooting; Officer Alexander Roman, a nearly seven-year veteran of the force. APD did not reveal the names of the other officers at the scene.
Case said an officer — presumed to be Roman — fired three rounds at Leafa and another officer fired a 40-millimeter platform, a “less lethal projectile.”
On Monday, Case said that from what police can tell at this point in the investigation, shots from the handgun and less lethal projectile were fired “pretty much” at the same time.
The family said police attempted CPR and Easter was taken away in an ambulance. They say they didn’t know Easter had died until the following morning at 4 a.m.
On Wednesday, at a specially-called Anchorage Assembly meeting, the family requested to see the police body-worn camera footage that captured Easter’s death and also requested to be able to see her body.
On Monday, the family created a makeshift memorial on the apartment’s balcony to honor Easter. Her favorite meal, a McDonald’s Big Mac and fries, were placed in the foreground. Flowers — as well as green, pink and white candles — flickered in front of a large photo of the teen, pictured with a flower tucked behind her ear.
Beside the memorial, the floor remained stained with Easter’s blood.
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