A Juneau stage was packed with artists on Saturday night. They were there to pay tribute to Steven Kissack, a local man who was shot and killed by law enforcement during a standoff last month.
Many on stage and in the crowd knew Kissack — he’d lived on the streets downtown for years with his malamute, Juno — and they were there to mourn him and to call for change.
Audio PlayerOn stage in the Crystal Saloon Saturday night, Lisa Puananimōhalaʼikalani Denny played “Nearer my God to Thee” on her ukulele. She said she sang it at her father’s funeral.
“We all experience loss. And Juneau is a family, and we feel our losses together,” she said.
Denny saw Kissack often until he died last month. She was working downtown when she heard the shooting. And she isn’t the only one. The audience and lineup on Saturday were full of people who knew and interacted with Kissack regularly or were nearby when he was shot.
The event took place only a few feet from where the standoff happened. The Juneau Police Department said Kissack threatened officers with a knife. The incident is still under investigation by the Alaska Bureau of Investigation.
David Elrod works at the Crystal Saloon and organized the event.
“I don’t think anybody anywhere wants to see anything like this happen,” he said. “And you can debate the merits of how it happened, but nobody wants to see it happen.”
Elrod said the responses from local artists to Kissack’s death made him want to gather people together to try to make something positive out of the tragedy.
Since last month, people have gathered downtown to mourn and remember Kissack, and to call for better responses to people experiencing homelessness and mental health crises.
Elrod said a lot of people made the event happen — bartenders donated their tips, the artists that performed donated their time, and a portion of the bar profits that night were donated too. Artist Natalie Weinberg auctioned a live painting and local chef Amara Enciso auctioned a private dinner — the money from each went into the donation pool.
Between ticket sales, donations and bar sales, the event brought in $5,200 for Gastineau Human Services. The local nonprofit provides housing for formerly incarcerated people and others struggling with housing instability, and provides mental health care and addiction treatment services.
Advocates for change also took the stage on Saturday.
Salomé Starbuck started Juneau Justice for Steve. She experienced housing instability herself as a teenager, and knew Kissack as a member of the downtown community in Juneau.
“We will work to see this city house the unhoused in a considerate and inclusive way allocate funding to comprehensive medical health care, mental health care services for the vulnerable, and where an armed police presence is escalatory rather than de-escalatory, implement new systems for how contact is initiated with our at-risk communities,” she said.
About a dozen people have been activate in Starbuck’s organization to advocate for local mental health response teams, made up of people trained to address mental health crises and intervene before the police get involved.
Because the shooting took place in the middle of the day on a busy street, dozens of people in town witnessed it. Josh Fortenbery, a local folk musician, wrote a song about Kissack’s death.
“We’re gonna grieve together a little bit,” he said before the opening chords.
The local chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness has a list of resources on its website for coping with traumatic events.
Clarification: This story previously stated that donations and ticket sales from the event totaled $4,600, but the portion of the Crystal Saloon’s bar tab added to that means $5,200 was raised for Gastineau Human Services.
This story has also been corrected to more accurately reflect Starbuck’s personal history.
