An Unexplained Death
Easter Leafa’s death by police gunfire is still under investigation. The newly appointed Anchorage Police Department’s chief, Sean Case, and the mayor, also new in office, Suzanne LaFrance, have given their first explanations. But no one can explain why an officer ends up shooting a 16-year-old girl.Easter Leafa had arrived in Anchorage a few months earlier from the Pacific Islands and was about to start school in Anchorage. On August 13, there was an angry argument at home. The police were called and upon arrival an officer’s gunshot ended it all, including Easter’s life.
As of August 13, Easter was the fourth person shot and killed by Anchorage Police since mid-May and the sixth person to be shot. Sol de Medianoche asked Mayor LaFrance and Chief Case for further explanation. To Suzanne LaFrance we asked, among many other things, “What can or what does Suzanne LaFrance, mother of three, have to say to the bereaved mother of Easter Leafa? What can she promise so that there won’t be another Easter Leafa?” Chief Case was asked what he has said to the officer who fired the shots, if he spoke to him at all. We have received their silence on both cases, but we look forward to hearing back from them. Lucy Hansen, president of the Alaska Polynesian Association, has told us that her organization will not be taking legal action against the Police Department, because it is Easter’s family’s decision. But this isn’t the first time there have been incidents between police officers and Polynesian citizens. Hansen only spoke to the deceased young woman’s older sister during the week-long candlelight vigil. “The Pacific Islander community and the citizens of Anchorage in all its diversity, not just Polynesian, want to see changes in policing,” she told us. |