The shooting death of a 16-year-old girl by police is among a spate that's upset Anchorage residents

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Easter Leafa was sitting under a blanket on her balcony with a knife when Anchorage police arrived, responding to a call for help from her family. Instead of showing her hands as told, they said, the 16-year-old girl stood and approached them with the blade.

Two officers opened fire simultaneously, one with a less-lethal foam projectile and the other with real bullets, killing her two days before Leafa was to start her junior year of high school. She had recently moved from American Samoa to get a better education and was still learning English, her family said.

Leafa was among seven people shot by Anchorage police since May, the most recent a homicide suspect critically injured after officers said he opened fire on them Friday afternoon. That is more than twice as many as the department typically shoots in a year. Four of the subjects were killed.

The spate has made Anchorage the latest in a long list of American cities to wrestle with how police use force and prompted an apology to Leafa’s family along with promises of reform from the city's new mayor.

“This cannot be our new normal,” Mayor Suzanne LaFrance told a news conference after Leafa's death.

The other six shootings involved suspects who reportedly had firearms, shot at police or, in two cases, were armed homicide suspects.

The leader of the city's police union, Darrell Evans, suggested in a statement Friday that the unusual spike in shootings by officers reflected “the chaos our city is facing.” There have been 20 homicides in Anchorage this year, 14 in the past few months.

While that total is already approaching last year's 23 with about a third of the year still to go, it's roughly in line with typical Anchorage homicide totals: there were 35 in 2019 and 28 in 2022.

At least four of those shot by police were people of color, and that has especially rattled Anchorage’s minority residents.

The city is one of the most diverse in the U.S., with large populations of Asian, Hispanic and Alaska Native people, including many who came for military service and remained. There are over 100 languages spoken by students in Anchorage schools, and the U.S. Census said Anchorage had the four most racially and ethnically diverse neighborhoods in the nation after the 2020 count.

The police department has tried to increase its diversity over the past decade, but still 7 in 10 officers are white, far more than the city's population of 291,000, which is a little over half white, according to Census data.

Leafa’s Aug. 13 killing prompted several prayer vigils as well as a march past Anchorage police headquarters that drew hundreds of people. Participants expressed grief and anger, as well as bewilderment at why one officer used live ammunition while the other had a less-lethal option. The police department has offered no explanation.

Tammalivis Salanoa, with the Polynesian Association of Alaska, told The Associated Press that some in the Pacific Islander community will think twice before they call Anchorage police for help.

“They should be ready for these kinds of circumstances,” she said. "They knew what they signed up for, whereas we as a community are just in our living rooms, just trying to live our lives. We don’t expect to call for help and then that be the last call we ever make.”

LaFrance and Police Chief Sean Case, both of whom took office in July, said they would have an outside entity investigate the Leafa shooting. They said they also would establish an advisory committee and have an outside party audit the department’s policies and procedures and recommend practices to reduce uses of force.

Case said that when he became chief he decided to have all of Anchorage's police shootings over the past 15 years reviewed. On Monday, he plans to name a captain to oversee all aspects of department training.

The department already trains in de-escalation techniques. But Leafa's family told told Anchorage television station KTUU that one of the officers arrived with his gun out. A sister had called police to report that Leafa had come at her with the knife. The officers sequestered the rest of the family in a bedroom before approaching the teen.

“She was a minor," said Faialofa Dixon, another sister. “They should have asked questions when they came in.”

Dallas attorney James Roberts represents the family of Kristopher Handy, who in mid-May became the first person killed by Anchorage officers this year.

Police initially said officers shot Handy, who was severely intoxicated, when he raised a long gun toward them in an apartment complex parking lot. But the shooting was the first since Anchorage police began wearing body cameras, and video taken by those cameras and by a neighbor's security camera appeared to show Handy kept the gun down before police started shooting.

The state's Office of Special Investigations found the shooting justified, saying Handy was walking toward officers and ignoring orders to drop the weapon. His family filed a wrongful death lawsuit.

“It just appears that these officers are going in, not with the thought of de-escalating the situation, but with the thought of using their weapons immediately,” Roberts said.

Video from Leafa's killing has not been released.

Evans, the president of the Anchorage Police Department Employees Association, said he was dismayed the mayor apologized when an investigation into the shooting had only just begun.

“We have also heard the oversimplified statement that ‘six officer-involved shootings since May is far too many’ and how that somehow reflects a failure only upon the policing profession,” he wrote. “That level of oversimplification does nothing to acknowledge the weight of each of those incidents.”

Tammalivis Salanoa with the Polynesian Association of Alaska, is shown using her phone after a prayer vigil Friday, Aug. 16, 2024, in downtown Anchorage, Alaska, after police shot and killed 16-year-old Easter Leafa, who had recently moved from American Samoa. (AP Photo/Mark Thiessen)

Rev. Patricia A. Wilson Cone, right, of First American Baptist Church, right, puts her hand on the shoulder of Lusiana Hansen, executive director of the Polynesian Association of Alaska, during a prayer vigil Friday, Aug. 16, 2024, in downtown Anchorage, Alaska, after police shot and killed 16-year-old Easter Leafa, who had recently moved from American Samoa. (AP Photo/Mark Thiessen)

Rev. Patricia A. Wilson Cone, right, of First American Baptist Church, right, puts her hand on the shoulder of Lusiana Hansen, executive director of the Polynesian Association of Alaska, during a prayer vigil Friday, Aug. 16, 2024, in downtown Anchorage, Alaska, after police shot and killed 16-year-old Easter Leafa, who had recently moved from American Samoa. (AP Photo/Mark Thiessen)

Lusiana Hansen, executive director of the Polynesian Association of Alaska, is shown speaking during a prayer vigil Friday, Aug. 16, 2024, in downtown Anchorage, Alaska, after police shot and killed 16-year-old Easter Leafa, who had recently moved from American Samoa. (AP Photo/Mark Thiessen)

Anchorage Police Chief Sean Case addresses a news conference Monday, Aug. 19, 2024, after officers shot and killed 16-year-old Easter Leafa, who had recently moved to Alaska from American Samoa. (AP Photo/Mark Thiessen)

Attendees hold signs and the flag of Western Samoa during a march for Easter Leafa, a 16-year-old recently fatally shot by police, on Saturday, Aug. 17, 2024, outside the police headquarters in Anchorage, Alaska. (Loren Holmes/Anchorage Daily News via AP)

A prayer vigil drew about 100 residents, including members of the American Samoa community, to downtown Anchorage, Alaska, on Friday, Aug. 16, 2024, after police shot and killed 16-year-old Easter Leafa. (AP Photo/Mark Thiessen)

Attendees walk past the police headquarters during a march for Easter Leafa, a 16-year-old Samoan girl recently fatally shot by police, on Saturday, Aug. 17, 2024 in Anchorage, Alaska. (Loren Holmes/Anchorage Daily News via AP)

A prayer vigil drew about 100 residents, including members of the American Samoa community, to downtown Anchorage, Alaska, on Friday, Aug. 16, 2024, after police shot and killed 16-year-old Easter Leafa. (AP Photo/Mark Thiessen)

Anchorage Police Chief Sean Case addresses a news conference Monday, Aug. 19, 2024, after officers shot and killed 16-year-old Easter Leafa, who had recently moved to Alaska from American Samoa. (AP Photo/Mark Thiessen)

Rev. Samuel Unutoa speaks with Mayor Suzanne LaFrance and Police Chief Sean Case during a march for Easter Leafa, a 16-year-old recently fatally shot by police, on Saturday, Aug. 17, 2024, outside the police headquarters in Anchorage, Alaska. (Loren Holmes

Easter Leafa addresses a crowd during a march for her daughter, also named Easter Leafa recently fatally shot by police, Saturday, Aug. 17, 2024, outside the Nesbett Courthouse in Anchorage, Alaska. (Loren Holmes

BANGKOK (AP) — Germany sailed two warships through the Taiwan Strait on Friday in its first transit of the disputed waters in more than two decades, as Berlin seeks to increase its defense engagement in the Asia-Pacific region.

China claims the self-governing democratic island of Taiwan as its own, and views such transits as provocative actions.

To challenge China's claims, the United States and allies including Australia, Canada, Britain and France, have regularly conducted “freedom of navigation” operations there, sailing through the strait to emphasize that it is international waters.

In its last naval deployment to the region in 2021-22, Germany had sought to avoid confrontation with China and attempted a diplomatic balancing act, seeking a port call in China, which Beijing denied, and by not sailing through the Taiwan Strait.

The government was widely criticized for this approach, and on this deployment to the Indo-Pacific, leaders decided to sail through the strait en route from South Korea to the Philippines in a widely-telegraphed move.

“The signal is a very simple one, which we have always maintained and I have always maintained,” German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius told reporters in Berlin. “International waters are international waters.”

Taiwan's Defense Ministry confirmed in a post on X that the frigate Baden-Wuerttemberg and support ship Frankfurt am Main had transited through the strait from north to south, adding that throughout the sail "the situation remained normal."

China, which often reacts sharply to American warships transiting the strait, was somewhat muted in its response.

Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning told reporters that for Beijing, “the Taiwan issue is not an issue of freedom of navigation, but an issue related to China's sovereignty and territorial integrity.”

She said that while China respects the navigation rights of all countries, “we firmly oppose provocations endangering China’s sovereignty and security in the name of freedom of navigation.”

The European Union three years ago embarked on a new strategy for the Asia-Pacific aimed at boosting economic, political and defense ties. Part of that has been focused on improving maritime security and ensuring safe passage through sea lanes.

It comes at a time when China is becoming increasingly assertive in pushing its maritime claims in the region, including on virtually the entire South China Sea and on Taiwan.

China maintains that Taiwan is part of its territory, and President Xi Jinping has not ruled out taking it by force.

China sends warplanes and warships near Taiwan on a near-daily basis in an attempt to intimidate its citizens and degrade the island’s defenses.

In response, Taiwan has extended the period of national military service to one year, building its own submarines and importing sophisticated new equipment from the U.S.

The vast majority of Taiwanese favor the current status of their island, which separated from mainland China amid civil war in 1949.

FILE - A Taiwan national flag flutters near the Taipei 101 building at the National Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Memorial Hall in Taipei, Taiwan, on May 7, 2023. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying, File)