Sunday afternoon, a couple dozen people gathered across from the state Capitol building in downtown Juneau. Some held signs with messages like like “Justice for Steven” and “Until we meet again.”
Genevieve McFadden’s sign read, “Rest in Peace Steven Kissack.” She said she was there because she saw videos of Steven Kissack’s shooting, and she doesn’t want to see anything like that happen in Juneau again.
“Seeing people gunned down in the street is awful, and it makes me feel unsafe,” McFadden said. “And makes me worry about my kid, you know? I don’t want anything like that to happen to her or anybody else.”
The protesters gathered to express their anger over the death of Steven Kissack last week. Kissack had been living on the streets downtown with his dog, Juno, for years when law enforcement shot and killed him during a confrontation on July 15.
Bonilyn Parker, who owns Griz Bar, came to the protest with a letter she wrote with help from some other downtown business owners. She said she plans to read it at the next Assembly meeting, on July 29.
She said she hopes the letter will help the city to realize the impact Kissack’s shooting has had on everyone in Juneau.
“I think this is a really ripe moment for some change,” she said.
Nearby, Salomé Starbuck read aloud from the letter as it got passed around for people to sign.
“As a result of this tragedy, members of our downtown community and visitors to our community are experiencing anger, fear and a loss of a loss of trust,” she read. “We must work to resolve that trust and make Juneau a place where people can live safely and without fear.”
Starbuck signed the letter.
“Every single person I’ve talked to since this has happened is devastated and angry about this happening,” she said.
There were actually two protests on Sunday: the gathering at the Capitol was advertised on a small piece of paper at a downtown memorial site for Kissack. But when demonstrators showed up, no one claimed to have planned it.
After half an hour, the group headed down to the library, where four young women had planned a second protest.
Savannah Brohard said she and her friends first made signs and took to the streets two days after the shooting. Later, they decided to plan a larger protest.
“Our voices matter given the fact that we’re in control of the future,” Brohard said.
Her friend Eulaysia Bostrack said she wanted to take action to make it known that young people are already tired of seeing violence like this.
“And it needs to stop, because we see this on the news every day, and it’s getting tiring, it’s painful,” Bostrack said. “This is not normal. This should not be normalized.”
And for Ariilana Shodda-Lee, Kissack’s death hit close to home.
“I’m personally continuing to push because I’ve been homeless, and who’s to say I’m not the next to get shot if I fall to homelessness,” Shodda-Lee said. “We need to be protecting our people and not just killing them.”
So far, the name of only one of the officers involved in the shooting — an Alaska Wildlife Trooper — has been released. Juneau police say the names of JPD officers involved will be released this week.
The Alaska Bureau of Investigations is investigating the shooting to determine if lethal force was necessary. The Alaska Office of Special Prosecutions will then independently review the findings.
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