a renowned forensic pathologist<\/a>, having worked on high-profile cases from the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. to the 2011 trial of Casey Anthony. The family sent Cody’s body to Spitz earlier this year after the state conducted its pathology report and released the body to the family. Cody was later cremated, Eyre-Harrison said.<\/p>\nSpitz’s findings are basically all the family has, Choate said, as the state has continued to hold onto its pathology report, police video and all other important documents relating to the case.<\/p>\n
“That’s just really unfair that one side would have access to everything and the other side would have access to nothing,” Eyre-Harrison said. “It doesn’t promote a very good sense of justice.”<\/p>\n
The Office of Special Prosecutions handles the investigation at this point. John Skidmore, the director of the Alaska Department of Law, wouldn’t comment on the specifics of the case, as the investigation is still open.<\/p>\n
Skidmore said a number of factors could hold up an investigation. He said the more people involved in an incident, the more interviews they have to do and the more time it takes. Much of the investigation, he said, depends on the local agency. Skidmore said that for smaller agencies (anything but the Troopers and Anchorage Police Department), their low staffing totals tend to slow the process down.<\/p>\n
What OSPA does, Skidmore said, is review a department’s internal investigation and determine whether an officer committed a crime under Alaska statutes. The office has handed down charges to some officers over the years for excessive force, he said, but Skidmore said none of those were shooting-related.<\/p>\n
“Having reviewed the review of others in the department, we have not seen any situations in which we thought that our officers here in Alaska had violated the law or had engaged in criminal conduct in the course of a shooting,” Skidmore said.<\/p>\n
^<\/span><\/p>\nCreating change<\/span><\/p>\nEarlier this year, the Eyre family was invited to attend an event for an organization started by Trayvon Martin’s mother Sybrina Fulton called Circle of Mothers in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. There, the Eyres talked with other families who have lost family members to gun violence and compared experiences.<\/p>\n
There were a variety of common themes that emerged, Eyre-Harrison said. Other families who had gone through litigation with state agencies said that families rarely win, and even when they do, the state’s penalty usually comes from taxpayer money instead of punishing the departments themselves.<\/p>\n
“It doesn’t really do much to promote change, because there are no repercussions or incentive to change their policies or do different trainings,” Eyre-Harrison said. “Even if a family wins a lawsuit, a lot of times that isn’t enough to motivate change.”<\/p>\n
Still, Choate said he hopes that filing a lawsuit will at least get the state to release the information it has and to provide the family with some answers. Choate, who usually has a full slate of cases, said he took this one on because not only is it a local family, but this is such a relatable situation — it was just a person having a bad day, and he ended up dying.<\/p>\n
Even though the incident didn’t take place in Juneau, Choate said, it’s important for residents around the state of under 740,000 people to look out for one another.<\/p>\n
“In Alaska, because this is really such a small state in terms of our population, holding people accountable is more important because it really is our own community,” Choate said.<\/p>\n
\n\u2022 Contact reporter Alex McCarthy at 523-2271 or amccarthy@juneauempire.com. Follow him on Twitter at @akmccarthy.<\/b><\/p>\n
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