Man dies after jumping off balcony at AFN, police say

Update, 1:30 p.m. Sunday: Anchorage police have identified the man who jumped to his death at the Dena'ina Center Saturday as 49-year-old Anthony Choquette. Read more here.

Original story: A man died after jumping from the third-floor balcony at the annual Alaska Federation of Natives convention at the Dena'ina Center on Saturday afternoon, according to Anchorage police, who described the death as a suicide.

The man died around 3:30 p.m., just before the end of the three-day convention. The drop from the railing was just over 59 feet, APD officer Sean Keating said.

Just before 4 p.m., firefighters and police officers surrounded the body with black curtain panels. Security also put panels around the edge of the third-floor balcony and evacuated people from the first floor of the convention center. A scheduled banquet was canceled.

Some people in the convention center suspected the death was a suicide, though details inside the hall were sketchy at first. Shortly after the death, some wondered aloud if someone had been shot or if a man had been pushed.

Keating said the man who died "looks older than 25. Appears to be a Native male adult with gray in his hair. He had a satchel, and he had glasses. Several people said they saw him get on the edge and go over. No one was around him."

Later Saturday night, Keating said police had identified the man but would not release his name until next of kin could be notified. No one at the convention came forward to say they knew him, Keating said.

AFN leaders reacted quickly to the news, with co-chair Ana Hoffman telling delegates in the convention room that a tragedy had just occurred in the building. She said a prayer and called for a long moment of silence.

Hundreds of delegates had just enjoyed one of the event's most uplifting moments -- the awards ceremony for inspiring Alaska Natives making positive changes in their communities. The AFN banquet, an evening event that usually caps off the convention, was canceled.

AFN president Julie Kitka said she would not comment on the death. A statement issued by AFN shortly after the convention ended said the organization "has no further information about today's tragic incident. We offer our heartfelt condolences to the family for their loss."

In a phone interview Saturday night, Anchorage Mayor Ethan Berkowitz's communications director, Myer Hutchinson, said, "We're deeply saddened by this tragedy, and this is really an unfortunate event, but it reminds us all that this issue can affect anybody at any time and is causing pain across Alaska."

Echoes of Hooper Bay

The death punctuated a conference where delegates had focused heavily on the disproportionate incidence of suicide among Native people. Many were still grieving for the residents of Hooper Bay, where four people killed themselves in a 16-day period in late September and early October.

Overall, Alaska's suicide rate is twice the national average, Statewide Suicide Prevention Council chairman Bill Martin said. He added that suicide rates for people between the ages of 14 and 27 are 10 times the national average.

"It is still an epidemic," Martin said. "There's been no improvement in the 12 years I've been on the board."

According to Martin, the council doesn't receive enough state funding to travel around the state for outreach, which he said is frustrating.

"When you talk to legislators about increasing funding, they say, 'Well where does the money come from?' But how much is one life worth?" They'll say, 'We can't just keep throwing money at it,' but we have to keep trying. If something doesn't work, we should try again. Our young people are killing themselves, and it doesn't seem to want to end," Martin said.

He stressed the importance of being able to save even one life and used the recent Hooper Bay suicides as an example.

"If that first life hadn't been taken, the others wouldn't have happened," Martin said. "So if you save one life, you save many lives. They are young people. We're losing future leaders, future parents, future grandparents, who have so much to live for. There is nothing like being a grandparent -- jeez, if there was just some way we could get to them."

An Anchorage group at AFN called Returning to Harmony that planned to go to Hooper Bay to comfort people in mourning there also reacted quickly Saturday, offering to meet with anyone who was upset by the death.

Liz Sunny Boy, an elder from Pilot Station now living in Anchorage and a group member, saw Saturday's events as a call to action.

"People need to unite," she said. "We have to hear this. As soon as we heard it, we all united here."

"This is going to trigger emotions for a lot of people," said Laura Castaneda, another member of the group.

Just the day before, 2011 Iditarod champion John Baker of Kotzebue and Gov. Bill Walker had announced with other state leaders that they are joining efforts to help battle depression and promote wellness. That includes a contract from the governor's office for up to $50,000 to help Baker expand his effort to fight depression, suicide and abuse in the Kotzebue region and take it statewide, said Katie Marquette, Walker's spokeswoman.

Walker offered the state's booth in the convention as part of the effort so people could sign up as wellness ambassadors under the program called Alaskans Changing Together. Walker said he wants to create a "network of safety" so friends and family can help catch "those losing their way" before it's too late.

A familiar scene

Saturday's death also echoed a similar incident at the same spot three years ago. In 2012, heli-ski pioneer Theodore Meiners of Valdez accidentally fell over the convention center's escalator handrail and plunged about 47 feet to his death.

In 2014, a lawyer representing Meiners' estate filed a wrongful death suit against the city and the operators of the convention center, claiming building codes and safety precautions that could have prevented Meiners' fatal fall were "overlooked or ignored." The lawyer, Phillip Paul Weidner, singled out the barriers around the escalator as being too short "to prevent someone from falling over the side."

Then-city attorney Dennis Wheeler said after the lawsuit was filed that the city conducted a "thorough review" of the escalator area and found that the design was in compliance with city code. The lawsuit is ongoing.

Hutchinson, Mayor Berkowitz's spokesperson, would not comment on the lawsuit Saturday. When questioned about safety at the convention center, he said, "We are always concerned with safety at all of the municipal facilities, and any accident gives us all a chance to pause and gives us a chance to evaluate any concerns around that."

Desperation in the air

Outside the Dena'ina Center, just after 4 p.m., APD set up a police line on Seventh Avenue. Response groups and Anchorage chaplains did their best to comfort distraught people. Police cruisers lined the street, and a steady stream of taxis funneled through, picking up evacuated attendees. Large groups of people gathered on street corners and sidewalks. Some hugged; others chain-smoked. Many hung their heads and cried.

One police chaplain put her arm around a little boy and spoke quietly as he kept his gaze firmly on the ground.

Most declined to talk about the incident, some angrily clenching their fists, some saying, "It's too soon."

But Trimble Gilbert of Arctic Village said he hopes the incident will be a strong plea to the state to make stronger efforts to stop the suicide epidemic. He called the death "shocking."

"We need to fix this in unity; it shouldn't be up to each tribe individually," Gilbert said. "We need to join together and become one. From the bottom of my heart I want the state to know."

Gilbert also said Saturday's events were "frustrating" as the topic of suicide is discussed year after year at AFN.

Laura Avellaneda-Cruz had gone to AFN to shop through the craft booths on the first floor. When she was done, she decided to head to the third floor to watch the Tlingit dancers. She was standing on the west side of the floor when the scene began to unfold.

"I saw him climb over, and in that quarter of a second hoped it was a reckless joke and that he'd climb back onto the floor, but then I saw him let go and fall, then the sound, then the screams," Avellaneda-Cruz said.

"My memory of it, though it is vague, is that there were two other people sort of near him trying to stop him, but they couldn't get to him in time to physically stop him," Avellaneda-Cruz said. "I think there were two people, maybe men, saying 'no' or 'stop' or something. I remember it more emotionally than anything else, as people trying to do the right thing, that desperation of trying to stop the suicide and not being able to."

Avellaneda-Cruz's young daughter saw the man lying on the floor, and even though the little girl didn't understand what was happening, her mother said the moment scared her.

"She felt the stress and fear," Avellaneda-Cruz said. She also saw a woman on the floor having a panic attack.

From a public health standpoint, Avellaneda-Cruz said she hopes that "in the time of a budget crisis," the state and federal governments will invest more in preventing the early life trauma that contributes to so many suicides.

'It touches all of us'

Soon after the man's death, dozens of attendees from the Arctic gathered on a nearby stage and sang two songs -- one in Inupiaq called "Aariga" and another called "Praying for You" -- as the convention officially ended. None seemed to know where the man was from, but they wanted to sing. No one stopped them.

Marie Greene of Kotzebue, one of the singers, said it was a spontaneous sign of solidarity and support. "Our tradition when we hear sudden news is to pull together and extend our love and prayers to the family of the one who passed," Greene said. "We feel it touches all of us."

Anyone in distress can call the Alaska CareLine at 1-877-266-HELP. Here's a list of other easily accessible resources for suicide prevention, including suicide warning signs.