A large crowd marched through downtown Anchorage on Saturday to promote peace and justice for Easter Leafa, who was shot and killed by a police officer this week.
Easter Leafa addresses a crowd in Samoan during a march for her daughter, also named Easter Leafa, on Saturday outside the Nesbett Courthouse in Anchorage. Family members this week said the younger Easter Leafa arrived in Alaska from American Samoa earlier this year and turned 16 in June. She was fatally shot by police on Tuesday.
Saturday’s march was aimed at finding peace and creating a unified path forward as a city, said the Rev. Samuel Fiu Unutoa, CEO of the Samoan Tribal Council of Alaska. The Rev. Samuel Unutoa speaks with Mayor Suzanne LaFrance and Police Chief Sean Case during a march for Easter Leafa on Saturday outside the police headquarters in Anchorage. As the group moved toward the old city hall building, Christine Unutoa-Luafulu, founder of the Ladies of the Pacific Dance Academy, told the crowd that things could have been done differently — and that Leafa should not have died.The young girls who Unutoa-Luafulu works with are now scared to call the police, she said.
Dozens of people in the crowd carried signs reading “Justice for Easter,” “Don’t shoot,” “Say her name” or “Forever 16.”
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