State will not file charges against Anchorage police officer in Easter Leafa shooting

This story contains a graphic description of the incident.

The State of Alaska will not file charges against the Anchorage police officer who shot and killed Easter Leafa, 16, in an incident on Aug. 13, the Department of Law said in a report issued Monday. Meanwhile, the Anchorage Police Department released a series of videos of body camera footage showing the fatal encounter between officers and the teenager in an East Anchorage apartment.

Officer Alexander Roman’s force was justified under Alaska self-defense and defense of others statutes, a 22-page report from the office concluded. Roman is a six-year veteran of the department.

“Given the facts and circumstances surrounding this incident, when evaluated under relevant Alaska law, this office will not be filing criminal charges against Officer Roman in this matter,” the report said. “Officer Roman’s use of deadly force against Leafa was legally justified under Alaska statutes as ‘self-defense’ or ‘defense of others.’”

The body camera video captures a tense encounter in which family members voice concerns that the armed police arriving at the scene to investigate a report that Leafa had threatened her sister with a knife will escalate the situation.

The Leafa family learned on Monday afternoon that Roman would not face charges in the shooting, their attorney Darryl Thompson said. The decision was difficult for them to hear, but he said it was not a surprise. No police officers have been criminally charged in relation to a shooting in Alaska during recent decades.

Police on Monday released a series of videos, four showing the raw redacted footage from separate body cameras and one edited compilation that includes the 911 audio.

In the 911 call, one of Leafa’s sisters tells the dispatcher she was “acting up over some stupid s***” and had threatened her with a knife she described as the one the family used to cut vegetables.

The sister told the dispatcher “she’s only 16.”

Police arrived at the scene within a few minutes. The body camera footage begins with officers arriving at the East Anchorage apartment around sunset on Aug. 13. Their guns were drawn as they knock on the door and enter the apartment. Family members tell them that Leafa is sitting on an attached balcony.

“Are you guys going to point that to her?” one of the sisters says, referring to a gun carried by one of the responding officers.

“If she comes at us with a knife? Yes,” the officer responds.

“She’s not like that,” one of the sisters says. “But you guys coming like that to her, that’s really gonna cause some problem to her.”

The officers tell the family members they’re trying to resolve the situation safely and de-escalate it, but the family doesn’t seem convinced.

“I’m just trying to make sure that my sister’s OK,” one sister says.

When police try to corral several family members and a child in a bedroom, they push back.

Eventually, an officer slides a glass door to the balcony where Leafa sits covered in a blue blanket.

The officer tells her he needs to see “open empty hands, please.” She doesn’t respond.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he says, before saying noncompliance could lead to her getting injured and listing the different weapons police carry with them: “We have lethal, we have less lethal options. We have Taser. We have K-9,″ the officer says.

Leafa takes the blanket off and turns toward the officers, in the glare of their lights. She is holding a kitchen knife in her hand, it remains down at her side.

As they yell at her to drop the knife, she takes three steps forward. Roman fires on the third step, just as she crosses the threshold to the apartment.

Her family can be heard screaming in the background.

Throughout the encounter, officers repeatedly gave Leafa commands. She did not verbally respond to any of them.

Family members have said Leafa, who had months earlier moved from American Samoa to Alaska, was not fluent in English.

Thompson, the family’s lawyer, said he was struck by how quickly the shooting unfolded and said he does not believe police tried to deescalate the situation. The family was calm before police arrived, he said. Easter’s mother was holding a baby on the couch while watching television.

The officers entered the home with their guns drawn and didn’t listen to the family’s concerns, he said. The family can be heard in the body-camera footage asking to talk with Easter Leafa to calm her down, and telling the officers that their guns were frightening children in the home.

“There was nothing going on, no one was at risk,” Thompson said. “And instead of establishing a rapport, deescalating, they bark commands. ... That’s not crisis intervention.”

Thompson said police should have handled the encounter differently — the balcony locked from the inside and they could have easily talked with her from below.

The Office of Special Prosecutions review determined that Leafa was about 5 feet from the officers and took three steps forward before Roman shot her.

In an interview with investigators, Roman said he “felt afraid, surprised, and in shock as Easter Leafa stepped towards him,” the OSP report said.

“Officer Roman informed the detectives that he did not have time to think and reacted to the moment,” the report said. “He said he discharged his weapon three times. Officer Roman told detectives he felt that Easter Leafa was a threat to him because she was not complying with verbal commands, she appeared to be emotional, she seemed to be moving in a ‘purposeful manner,’ and she was armed with a knife.”

Leafa was about to enter her junior year of high school when she was killed. Her death spurred protests over the summer.

Case and Mayor Suzanne LaFrance announced a series of reforms in the days following the shooting including an in-depth analysis and review of fatal police shootings during the last 15 years.

During an interview Tuesday morning, Case said he expected to receive a draft of the preliminary analysis by Tuesday and will then look to create a formal report to release publicly.

Case said the department will analyze the officers’ responses and look at de-escalation during the next phase of the investigation, which is normally an internal investigation focused on policy. In this case, an outside agency will conduct the investigation.

He said part of that investigation will involve conversations with the officers involved in the Leafa shooting to analyze whether or not “proper de-escalation skills” were used.

In a statement Tuesday, the president of the union representing Anchorage police employees said the “legal conclusion does not take away from the extreme toll this tragedy has had on Easter Leafa’s family, Officer Roman’s family, our APD family and our community at large.”

Anchorage Police Department Employees Association President Darrell Evans acknowledged Rev. Samuel Fiu Unutoa’s efforts to call “for peace and a unified path forward as a city.” Unutoa is the CEO of the Alaska Samoan Tribal and led a traditional ceremony last week to encourage a harmonious relationship between the government and community.

“The healing process can only meaningfully occur when we stand together as one Anchorage community,” Evans wrote.

LaFrance in a statement Tuesday similarly called for the community to come together.

“Since August 13, I have been listening — to the family of Easter Leafa, to the residents of different backgrounds and cultures and to the APD officers who work to protect our city,” she said in the statement. “What I have heard, universally, is that we all want Anchorage to be a place where everyone feels safe.”

Read the full Office of Special Prosecutions report:

Related: Since 2000, Anchorage police have killed 34 people. Here’s what we know about the fatal encounters, and why the department is doing its own analysis.

Clarification: An earlier version of this story said Officer Alexander Roman was 5 yards away from Easter Leafa when he fatally shot her. Roman initially estimated that was the distance, but measurements and accounts from others showed he was 5 feet away, according to an Office of Special Prosecutions review.