As protesters gathered along a main thoroughfare in Fairbanks on April 11, several carried portraits of William Rexford, a 24-year-old Alaska Native man. On New Year’s Day, two Alaska State Troopers shot and killed Rexford while he was experiencing a mental health crisis. They also and also shot and critically wounded his brother, who was trying to intervene.
The protest came the day after Rexford’s funeral — which was also the day when state prosecutors announced they would not press charges against the troopers who shot the brothers. Now, community members are asking state lawmakers to make it easier for the families of police shooting victims to access body cam footage.
Speaking to the protestors, Rexford’s sister, Elizabeth Rexford, said she will always remember her brother as a smart, industrious, and genuinely kind person — and one who very much had his future on his mind.
“He would call me to talk about investments, stocks, retirements — things most people his age weren't even thinking about yet,” she said.
According to 911 records obtained by KUAC, three Alaska State Troopers responded to a pair of calls on New Year’s Day — one from Rexford’s father and one from a brother — reporting that William Rexford was experiencing a mental health crisis at his home shortly after he’d been discharged from the hospital.
Body camera footage reviewed by KUAC showed the troopers speaking to William Rexford for about six minutes in the family’s living room about returning to the hospital. Rexford can then be seen fleeing to the kitchen, where troopers reported he grabbed two knives.
Trooper John Faul fell to the ground and, according to an incident report, sustained a knife wound on his hand. He and Trooper Wyatt Miller shot at Rexford, killing him. They also shot Adam Rexford, who troopers said had been trying to pull his brother away from Faul. According to family members, Adam Rexford is now at a hospital in Seattle, recovering from a gunshot wound to the head.
All of this unfolded in front of their mother, Donna Rexford, who also spoke at the protest.
“They came and killed my son and shot my other one in the brain,” Rexford said. “I spent over 10 weeks in Seattle, because he is blind in one eye. He has trouble walking.”
Both Miller and Faul had been on the force for less than six months at the time of the shooting.
A release from the state Department of Law said the shooting was legally justified. In an interview, trooper spokesperson Austin McDaniel said the troopers will try to learn from the incident.
“The folks from training, from tactics, from command, will go through and essentially review the incident to determine if any of our tactics, training or equipment should be changed,” he said. “So we have to, hopefully, use less lethal force in situations like this.”
At the protest, which was organized by the Indigenous activist group Native Movement, members of the Rexford family said they didn’t want to see another family go through such a tragedy. But some at the protest already had.
Jean Eyre is the mother of Cody Eyre, a 20-year-old man who was fatally shot by police while he was experiencing a mental health crisis on Christmas Eve in 2017.
“This is not just Fairbanks. It's not just Anchorage,” she said. “It happens all over Alaska. It happens down south as well.”
The federal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals determined that those officers did not use excessive force, either — though one of the judges issued a dissenting opinion that the second round of shots could have been unreasonable.
“Crisis intervention was about two minutes away,” Eyre said. “There was nowhere for Cody to go. He was completely surrounded by snow and woods and fences. He didn't shoot his gun even once, but the police shot at him 42 times and hit him 12 times.”
Eyre said she hopes these tragedies will inspire meaningful, lasting change and that, in the future, people facing mental health crises will be met with care rather than deadly force.
But for now, Rexford’s family is calling for more transparency. In the months after his death, Native Movement members say the Rexford family struggled to get basic information about the shooting that changed their lives forever — things like state records, body camera footage, and incident reports.
And several relatives said it was distressing when news outlets got the footage the same day they did and published it before they could review it.
They’re advocating for House Bill 377, which would ensure priority access to state records, including body camera footage, for immediate family and legal representatives of police shooting victims.