Anchorage police shot and killed a 16-year-old girl who they say was armed with a knife, making her the sixth person shot by the department in three months and the fourth to die.
Officers responded to a disturbance between two family members around 11:30 p.m. Tuesday, with the caller telling police that her sister was threatening her with a knife, Anchorage Police Chief Sean Case said at a news conference on Wednesday.
When police arrived, they gave the girl "some commands" but she approached officers with the knife still in hand, at which point a single officer fired multiple rounds, Case said. A second officer fired a round with a "less lethal projectile," he said.
Officers gave medical help to the teen, who was taken to a local hospital, where she died from her injuries. She was struck by gunfire in the "upper and lower body," according to an Anchorage police news release.
Case said the 16-year-old would have started her junior year of high school on Thursday. The identity of the teen will not be released due to her age, police said.
"This is a tragic incident, there is no other way to describe it,'" Case said. "As police officers, we strive to protect human life. And when we don't meet that goal, there is no other way to describe than it's tragic."
Family members identified the teenager killed as Easter Leafa, telling Alaska's News Source that she just celebrated her sweet 16th birthday last month.
“They took my girl’s life,” her mother, also named Easter Leafa, told the outlet.
USA TODAY has reached out to the Anchorage School District and the mayor's office for comment.
Tuesday's shooting marked the sixth officer-involved shooting Anchorage Police has had in three months, Case said. Four out of those six people shot by the department died, the Anchorage Daily News reported.
"We are committed to continue to look at our trainings, our tactics, as well as the supervision in these types of incidents to try to prevent future officer involved shootings," Case said.
The Daily News reported that Case has previously said the high number of officer-involved shootings this year is an anomaly and that normally the department has an annual average of three such shootings.
A second press conference has been scheduled for Monday afternoon, where Case will provide updates on the case, which was caught on a police body camera.
They have yet to interview the officer who shot and killed Easter, reporting that all of the information they had at the moment were the details called into dispatch.
Easter's sister, Faialofa Dixon, told Alaska's News Source that one of the officers had his gun out the moment he arrived at the family home.
“She was a minor, they should have asked questions when they came in," she said. "Instead, they came in ready, looking like they were ready to (shoot) her down.”
Dixon said that Easter and her mother moved from American Samoa to Alaska about five months ago, reuniting with a large extended family.
Easter was "just a 16-year-old (who) came to the U.S. looking for a good school and a future and now she’s gone," she said.
“We want justice for our sister, and we need answers,” Dixon said. “We need that body cam they had. No cuts. Full camera. Full videos. This is very heartbreaking, not only for us but our sisters and our mom who witnessed the whole thing.”
