APD names officer who fired gun in deadly police shooting of teen girl

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) - Anchorage police named the officer who fired his gun in Tuesday night’s shooting that left a teen girl dead in a University Area neighborhood.

APD said Officer Alexander Roman “discharged his weapon” during the deadly incident that killed 16-year-old Easter Leafa.

The department said Roman has been with APD since December 2017.

Roman was one of several officers who responded to a call from a sister of Leafa, who was reportedly wielding a knife when police arrived. Police did not name any other officers who responded to the scene.

APD said the shooting happened around 11:30 p.m. Tuesday when police were called to the Greenbriar Apartments off Tudor Road.

The caller said her sister, Easter, was threatening her and had a knife.

According to Anchorage Police Chief Sean Case, when officers arrived at the apartment, they commanded Leafa to drop the knife, which she didn’t.

Case said around this point, one officer fired multiple times at Leafa and another officer fired a “less lethal projectile.”

Case explained that Leafa began to approach officers when they made the decision to fire at her.

Easter’s family says she and her mother moved to Anchorage four or five months ago from American Samoa to join an extended family network of aunts, cousins, sisters and uncles. They were excited about her starting her junior year at Bettye Davis East High School and they described Easter as a quiet person who loved to sing and be with her nieces and nephews.

The president of the Anchorage Police Department Employees Association was critical of Anchorage Mayor Suzanne LaFrance’s reaction to recent police shootings, writing in a letter on Friday that there is more nuance to each incident than would appear to the public.

Several vigils and marches — including one hosted by Anchorage’s Samoan community and other advocates Saturday morning outside the Anchorage Police Department’s downtown headquarters — were planned in protest of Leafa’s death, as well as the other five police shootings that have occurred in Anchorage since May 13 of this year.

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