Crime & Courts

Anchorage police say officers shot and killed a teenage girl armed with a knife late Tuesday.

The shooting happened in a neighborhood on the 4800 block of East 43rd Avenue, near the Alaska Native Medical Center, according to a police statement.

At a brief news conference Wednesday morning, Police Chief Sean Case said that officers had been responding to a “disturbance” between two family members at about 11:30 p.m. Tuesday. The caller said her sister had threatened her with a knife.

Several officers responded, some of them entering the apartment the call came from, according to the police statement.

Officers gave the girl commands but she approached them still holding the knife, Case said. At that point, he said, two officers opened fire.

“One single officer fired multiple rounds,” he said. “A second officer fired a round with a less-lethal projectile.”

Police and medics treated the girl, but she died at a local hospital.

“The subject that was shot was a 16-year-old female,” Case said. “She would have started her junior year in high school on Thursday.”

Police declined to name the girl, due to her age, but family members later identified her as Easter Leafa.

She attended high school in the Anchorage School District, according to a statement from Superintendent Jharrett Bryantt.

“Our deepest condolences are with the families involved in this tragic situation,” he said.

Thursday is the first day of school in Anchorage, and Bryantt said there will be additional support services for impacted staff and students.

“We are working in partnership with the Anchorage Police Department,” he said. “We do not have any additional information to release at this time as this is an on-going investigation.”

During the news conference, Case called the shooting tragic.

“There’s no other way to describe it,” he said. “As police officers, we strive to protect human life and when we don’t meet that goal, there’s no other way to describe it then it’s tragic.”

Police say no one else in the apartment or any officers were injured.

Christina Konnig lives in an apartment building nearby. She watched Wednesday as officers walked in and out of the multi-level beige apartment complex where the shooting happened. She said she was shocked and angry that police killed a teenager.

“That’s pretty sad,” Konnig said. “I don’t get how APD is going to shoot a 16-year-old girl. They could’ve done a taser, not f*cking shooting them.”

Other community members also expressed outrage in the aftermath of the shooting. There was a flood of online comments on a video of the police news conference, many people mourning the loss of a young Alaskan and also questioning why police didn’t use nonlethal force.

Case said Anchorage Police Department policy calls for officers using less-lethal weapons to be backed up by others with lethal force. But, he added, officers have personal discretion in using those weapons.

“Each officer is making a determination to use the tool that they have with them based on the circumstances in front of them,” he said.

The teenager is the sixth person shot by Anchorage police since mid-May and she is the fourth person killed after the deaths of 34-year-old Kristopher Handy, 21-year-old Tyler May and 58-year-old Lisa Fordyce-Blair. State prosecutors have so far reviewed two of the fatal shootings, and declined to file criminal charges against the officers who shot Handy and May, saying the use of force was justified.

Case acknowledged the rising toll of shootings by Anchorage police this summer.

“We are committed to continue to look at our training, our tactics, as well as our supervision in these types of incidents to try to prevent future officer-involved shootings,” Case said.

The shooting was recorded on the officers’ body cameras, Case said, but the officers involved in the shooting had not yet been interviewed by Wednesday morning.

Per police policy, the name of the officer who killed the teenage girl will be released after 72 hours, and he will be on administrative leave for four days. The state Office of Special Prosecutions will investigate the shooting.

Police planned a second news conference Monday to discuss the incident in detail.

Alaska Public Media’s Ava White contributed information to this story.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.

Do nonhunting Alaskans who enjoy viewing wildlife have legal standing to challenge a state program that kills scores of bears and wolves for the purpose of boosting caribou numbers?

That is the question now before the Alaska Supreme Court. In a hearing in Anchorage, Michelle Bittner, an Anchorage attorney who opposes the state’s predator control program in Western Alaska, asked the justices to reverse a lower court decision that dismissed her complaint against the state Board of Game and Department of Fish and Game.

A state Superior Court judge found in October that Bittner did not have sufficient interest in the region’s wildlife to qualify for what is known in legal terms as standing. The term refers to the authority to challenge an action or law in court.

Bittner told the justices that, as a citizen of Alaska, a state where all residents are entitled through the constitution to benefit from commonly held natural resources, she does have standing to challenge the state program that is culling bears and wolves to aid the faltering Mulchatna caribou herd.

In 2022, the program’s first year, the state killed 94 brown bears, five black bears and five wolves. The program has continued, and the total is now up to over 180 and 40 wolves, a toll that affects her as an Alaskan who values wildlife, Bittner told the justices.

“My interests are that wildlife is part of my identity and experiences as an Alaska. I want to live in a place where wildlife is flourishing. I am exhilarated by viewing wildlife in their natural habitat. And I cherish wildlife, including predators,” she said. She described how she has visited Western Alaska and viewed and fished among the salmon-eating bears in Katmai National Park and Preserve.

She also has a legitimate interest as a citizen in ensuring that the state follows its own regulations, laws and constitution in making wildlife decisions, she said.

Bittner’s case before the Supreme Court is just a small portion of the legal fight against the Mulchatna predator control program, which the state intends to continue through 2028.

Another lawsuit filed a year ago against the state by the Alaska Wildlife Alliance alleges that the program is illegal, ignores scientific information indicating that predators are not the cause of the caribou herd’s problems and was adopted hurriedly without proper public notice. That lawsuit is pending in state Superior Court, and it is before the same judge who dismissed Bittner’s complaint, Andrew Guidi.

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game has defended the Mulchatna predator control program.

Still, Senior Assistant Alaska Attorney General Cheryl Brooking told the Supreme Court justices on Wednesday, the legal merits of the program were not up for their immediate consideration.

Instead, Brooking said, what is to be determined is whether Bittner’s case was properly dismissed. The state’s position is that Bittner’s connection to bears and wolves that may have been killed is too vague to qualify her for standing, Brooking said. Bittner has not shown evidence that she was harmed by the predator-control policy, she said.

“This court has said that standing is required, or a case must be dismissed. And if there’s no harm that has been alleged, no direct and personal harm, then that requires dismissal,” she said.

Bittner’s position is weakened because she has not revealed any specific plans to return in the future to the area where bear populations may have been affected by predator control, Brooking said. It is also weakened by her failure to testify or comment to the Board of Game at its 2022 meeting when it authorized the Mulchatna predator control program, she said.

Both Bittner and the Alaska Wildlife Alliance allege that the Board of Game failed to give sufficient public notice about the rule it adopted.

Federal prosecutors in Alaska are reviewing nearly two dozen criminal cases for potential conflicts of interest after revelations that a U.S. District Court judge had sexualized relationships with attorneys who appeared before him.

That’s according to a letter from the Alaska U.S. Attorney’s Office to the Federal Public Defender, obtained by Alaska Public Media, that includes a list of 23 cases assigned to former Judge Joshua Kindred that are under review.

Kindred abruptly resigned July 3, just four years into a lifetime appointment in 2020 by then-President Donald Trump.

Days later, on July 8, the Judicial Council for the Ninth Circuit released a 30-page order detailing Kindred’s inappropriate relationship with one of his law clerks, who went on to become a federal prosecutor. It also included an account of another federal prosecutor who sent Kindred nude photos and mentioned a private attorney with whom Kindred was said to have engaged in sexualized texts.

According to the order, which is based on a judicial conduct investigation that started in November of 2022, Kindred had also created a more generally hostile work environment in his office.

The allegations put Kindred’s impartiality in question. Defense attorneys say the secret and inappropriate relationships he had with prosecutors might’ve led to unfair rulings against their clients.

At least one defendant not on the list of cases under review has asked for a new trial, citing information in the Judicial Council’s order.

The Federal Public Defender for Alaska, Jamie McGrady, said in a July 17 letter to the U.S. Attorney’s Office that the federal prosecutors should have disclosed the potential for conflicts of interest much sooner, after learning of the allegations in November of 2022.

McGrady declined to comment for this story. But in the letter she described the lack of disclosure as a “willful suppression of information.”

The result, McGrady wrote, is that some defendants who would have been owed legal recourse have already reached the conclusion of their perhaps tainted cases, including some who’ve been serving their sentences.

“That result is even more troubling than the improper relationships at the heart of the conflicts,” McGrady wrote.

The Public Defender’s Office is conducting its own investigation and is prepared to litigate the issue further if its clients appear to have been treated unfairly, McGrady wrote.

A spokesperson for the Alaska U.S. Attorney’s Office declined an interview request with U.S. Attorney S. Lane Tucker and on Tuesday sent the following statement:

“This office has obligations to disclose potential conflicts of interest. When the office learned of misconduct allegations, the United States Attorney reported the information to the appropriate disciplinary authorities responsible for investigating the veracity of the allegations. We will continue to fully comply with all obligations, and will supplement our disclosures as required.”

Retired Public Defender Rich Curtner, who served in the role for 24 years, said he suspects there will be challenges to more cases than the 23 on the federal prosecutors’ list.

Curtner described the allegations against Kindred as, not just opening a can of worms, but a “landfill of worms.”

“It was really shocking to me when I heard all these allegations and how extensive they were,” Curtner said. “Absolutely it’s unprecedented. I mean, I’ve never even seen or heard anything like this happen in a federal court.”

The family of a woman whose photos Anchorage police found on a convicted killer’s phone think she is yet another of his victims.

A jury convicted Brian Steven Smith of murder in February for killing two Alaska Native women, and a judge in mid-July sentenced him to 226 years behind bars. In their sentencing memorandum, prosecutors included photos from one of Smith’s cellphones showing another woman who appeared to be unconscious or dead, along with a forensic artist’s sketch of her.

Now, Cassandra Boskofsky’s family says she is the woman in the photos, and they want answers about where her remains are located and why police haven’t identified her as Smith’s third victim.

Protestors stood in the rain across from the Anchorage Police Department at noon on Friday. Their faces were stamped with red handprints, a symbol of solidarity in the Missing and Murdered Indigenous People movement.

They carried signs that said, “Where is Cassandra?” and “Bring Cassandra home.”

Raindrops streamed like tears on a poster-sized photo of Cassandra Boskofsky’s face. She was 38 when her family reported her missing in August 2019.

Detectives seized the phone from Smith, when they took him in for questioning in another case, about a month after Boskofsky disappeared.

That was almost five years ago. In February, a jury convicted Smith of the murders of Kathleen Jo Henry and Veronica Abouchuk. Both were from remote coastal communities in Western Alaska. Evidence in Smith’s trial included video of him taunting and killing Henry.

Prosecutors said in their sentencing memo that the woman in the newly released photos was likely another of Smith’s victims, and they used them to make a case for a harsher sentence. Their recommendations prevailed, with Smith receiving the equivalent of two life sentences.

But Cassandra Boskofsky’s family still wants justice for their loved one.

Marcella Bofskofsky-Grounds is Boskofsky’s cousin, and said they were raised together like sisters when they were small. It was Bofskofsky-Grounds who reported her missing, shortly after her disappearance in 2019.

Bofskofsky-Grounds said she doesn’t understand why police kept the photos a secret for so long and why they waited to share them only days before Smith was sentenced. She said she recognized Boskofsky instantly and felt shocked, distraught and angry with police.

“She didn’t matter. That’s how I felt, like she didn’t matter to them,” Bofskofsky-Grounds said, “because they only brought it up to our attention, a week before his sentencing.”

So far, Anchorage police have not confirmed that the unidentified woman in Smith’s cell phone photos is Boskofsky.

It’s the department’s policy not to comment on active investigations, according to APD Detective Brendan Lee. Police try to avoid contacting a victim’s family until they have physical evidence, to avoid causing them grief over a case of mistaken identity, he said.

“APD takes the families affected into account and does not want to give information until it is 100% confirmed,” Lee said in an email. “Telling a family member that a loved one is missing or deceased without being 100% accurate can be just as mentally detrimental to them.”

Antonia Commack, a Missing or Murdered Indigenous Persons activist, isn’t satisfied with that explanation. Once the photos and the artist’s sketch went public, she said, it was easy to identify the images on Smith’s cellphone.

“I knew of a lot of (MMIP) cases statewide, and I knew, I knew immediately, that that was Cassandra,” she said. “When regular people can just look at a photo and identify it immediately, that’s really poor investigation.”

Police should be held accountable for their failure to act, Commack said. If they had made an artist’s sketch of Smith’s victim public shortly after they found the photo of the unknown woman on his phone, Boskofsky might have been identified a long time ago, she said.

But there’s often more going on behind the scenes than police can share with the public, said Lee, the detective.

“APD does not give out all details about ongoing investigations in order to preserve the investigation and not compromise it,” Lee said.

Cassandra Boskofsky’s aunt, Terrie Boskofsky, was one of about eight family members at the protest who chanted, “Where is Cassandra?” and “Justice for Cassandra.”

Her message to police: Their work is far from over.

“I want them to help find the remains,” she said, “so we can put her to rest.”

Grief over Boskofsky is widespread, she said.

“She came from a very large family,” Terrie Boskofsky said. “She had 14 aunts and uncles on my side.”

Boskofsky was raised in Ouzinkie and Old Harbor, two communities near Kodiak, where she has dozens of extended family members who will feel her loss, made more painful by knowing the difficulties she faced throughout her whole life. Boskofsky lost her mother in an ATV accident when she was small, and as an adult, her family said, she struggled with addiction. She had seven children, and all were adopted out.

But despite that, another aunt, Lisa Ann Christiansen, said people loved her niece for her good qualities, like the way she enjoyed the outdoors and helping others.

“She had really pretty, dark, long hair,” Christiansen said. “Dark eyes. The high cheekbones. Dimples. Just beautiful.”

Boskofsky enjoyed showing off pictures of her children, Christiansen said.

“You know, she loved her family,” she said. “Even though she didn’t have her kids, she loved them.”

People always hoped Boskofsky would eventually turn her life around, Christiansen said, but Smith cheated her of that opportunity to find her way.

Smith, who moved to Alaska from South Africa, worked at a Midtown Anchorage hotel as a maintenance man. During his trial, the jury saw a video Smith made of torturing and killing Henry in a room at the hotel. In an interview with police, he admitted that he specifically targeted vulnerable women, who could be lured away with offers of alcohol, food or shelter. The Carrs grocery store on Gambell Street was one of his preferred spots to pick up women.

MMIP activists have offered two separate $500 rewards, one for information leading to the recovery of Cassandra Boskofsky’s remains and a second that asks for information leading to the arrest of Ian Calhoun, a man prosecutors said was a friend of Smith’s. In the sentencing memo, prosecutors said they believe Calhoun probably knew about one of the murders. So far, he has not been charged in the case.

A woman named Amber, who asked that only her first name be used for this story, stood in the back of the group of protesters. She said she once lived on the streets and could have easily been one of Smith’s victims. Amber also said she was friends with Henry and Boskofsky.

Amber is half Black and half Lingít and was raised mostly in Anchorage. She said she grew up marginalized and that she and her friends, including Henry and Boskofsky, shouldered the burdens of past traumas.

Their loss will be felt in small villages across the state and even by those who didn’t know them, because many families have loved ones who have disappeared, she said.

“Their story is my story. It’s their story. It’s a community story,” Amber said. “We put ourselves in some dangerous situations, especially those of us who are looking for love and acceptance.”

“And I come from that. I come from the streets,” she said. “It’s so easy to get into the wrong person’s vehicle, and you don’t even know it.”

Before Amber left the protest, she rubbed red paint on her hands and crossed the street to leave imprints on the police department’s glass doors, a reminder of Cassandra Boskofsky, she said, and of all the “missing sisters whose voices have been silenced.”

Seven attorneys have thrown their name in the ring for a judicial position in Alaska’s Supreme Court. All seven candidates are women, meaning that – if everything proceeds as expected – the court will be majority-women for the first time in state history.

The seven applicants were announced last week by the Alaska Judicial Council, which screens and nominates applicants for judicial positions. The governor then fills a judicial vacancy from the nominees provided by the council.

The attorneys are applying to replace Chief Justice Peter Maassen, who will turn 70 – the retirement age for Alaska judges – in 2025. Maassen’s departure will mark the end of a series of retirements on the Supreme Court.

The incoming justice will be the fourth appointed by Gov. Mike Dunleavy out of a five-person court. The only justice that will not have been appointed by Dunleavy is Susan M. Carney, who was appointed by former Gov. Bill Walker in 2016. Carney replaced former Justice Dana Fabe, who was the first woman appointed to the Alaska Supreme Court in 1996.

The judicial council is made up of three attorneys and three public members appointed by the governor, as well as the chief justice – currently Maassen.

According to the appointment procedure outlined by the Alaska Constitution, the council will issue a survey to all Alaska attorneys, asking them to rank the candidates on six criteria related to professional suitability and judgment. The Alaska Judicial Council said that the results of the survey should be available in late September.

Then, the council will interview each candidate. In November, the attorney and public members of the council will vote to nominate the candidates who they believe to be the most qualified. If there is a tie, Maassen would cast the tie-breaking vote. The governor will then choose a new justice from the nominees.

Out of Alaska’s 27 current and former Supreme Court justices, only four have been women.

The Supreme Court justice applicants are:

Kate Demarest, a senior assistant attorney general at the Alaska Department of Law in Anchorage; Josie Garton, a Superior Court judge in Anchorage; Aimee Anderson Oravec, general counsel for Doyon Utilities LLC in Fairbanks; Margaret O. Rogers, currently in private practice in Fairbanks; Kate Vogel, the first assistant United States attorney at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Anchorage; Holly C. Wells, currently in private practice in Anchorage; andLaura Wolff, a senior assistant attorney general at the Department of Law in Anchorage.

The Ketchikan Gateway Borough announced Thursday that it was able to recover virtually all of the more than $625,000 that it was scammed out of two months ago.

Back in May, Borough Manager Ruben Duran informed the assembly that a “bad actor” had hacked a vendor’s email account and sent new payment instructions to the borough. The $625,155.84 payment was for work at the Dudley baseball field, according to Finance Director Charlanne Thomas.

The hacker’s account was soon frozen, after the receiving bank noticed multiple similar suspicious payments. Since then, borough staff haven’t been sure whether they could recoup any of the funds, or how much their fraud insurance would cover.

That was until Thursday morning, when Thomas said she got the good news.

“When we came in, we were notified that we received — all but $23 of the fraud was redeposited back into our account,” Thomas said.

She wasn’t sure what the $23.84 discrepancy was about, but was very thankful they were able to get the rest back. Thomas said the borough had promptly paid the original vendor for their work at the baseball field, and that luckily no finance transactions were held up due to the healthy balance in the borough’s general fund.

Thomas said borough officials are on especially high alert now because, within the last two weeks, they had another fraud attempt that again infiltrated an email thread with a known vendor.

“And they piggybacked on that email, and they forwarded this new banking information and requested that it be changed,” Thomas said. “I’m pretty paranoid at this point.”

She said before the scam in May, the finance department already had a policy of requiring banking information changes to be made over the phone, but this was a new vendor who followed up just hours after they set up the account.

“So many large businesses have multiple accounts for different things. I mean, I know that the borough does,” Thomas said. “So it wasn’t an unreasonable, out of the ordinary thing that we deal with. It was very sophisticated.”

Thomas said the department has made a number of security updates since May, some of which she didn’t want to share publicly, but all banking changes are now reviewed and discussed among supervisors. Going forward, she said the borough is protected from fraud attacks “to the best of our ability.”