Ashley Rae Johnston was separated from both of her parents by the age of 2, has been living on the streets much of her life since the age of 12, and was “spinning and reeling” during the months leading up to her death in a confrontation with police on Christmas Day, her mother said Thursday.
Johnston, 30, was shot at about 5:30 a.m. Wednesday after threatening a person at the Mendenhall Valley Breeze In with a hammer and then approaching police officers while carrying a hatchet, according to the Juneau Police Department. No other people were hurt during the encounter.
The incident, as with all officer-involved shootings, is being investigated by the Alaska Bureau of Investigation and will be reviewed by the State of Alaska Office of Special Prosecutions.
Johnston has had previous problems with the law including being convicted of charges involving vandalism by her and two others that caused a fire at Adair-Kennedy Memorial Park in the summer of 2012, an assault charge in 2022, and most recently was jailed in October for a probation violation until she was released on bail a couple of weeks later, according to the Alaska Court System’s online database.
Her mother, Terri Nierstheimer, in an interview with the Empire, said the park incident occurred soon after Johnston — who during her early childhood years went to a foster family as a toddler before being placed in her grandmother’s care — entered a period of her life with even more instability.
“My daughter has been in a very dark place since 2011 when her grandma suddenly died of cancer,” she said. “About eight months prior to that her great-grandma passed away. Eight years ago her dad died.”
While Johnston’s dark periods have included mental health struggles and resisting suggestions of seeking help, she also spent recent times “tent hopping” with numerous people she knew around town, Nierstheimer said. She said Johnston was known to many people by her middle name — although at the age of about 16 she insisted on spelling it “Raye.”
“I said ‘Why?’” Nierstheimer said. “She goes ‘Because I’m done living the way everybody else wants me to live, mom.’”
Ashley Rae Johnston zips up her tent at the now-closed Mill Campground on Aug. 15, 2023, as she prepares for the two-mile walk to a local food pantry with an empty suitcase. Johnston was killed while carrying a hatchet in a confrontation with police on Christmas Day of this year. (Clarise Larson / Juneau Empire file photo)
Johnston’s parents broke up when she was a year old, with her father departing and Nierstheimer struggling with alcohol while trying to raise her daughter and two older sons. But Johnston would maintain a connection with her mother while living elsewhere — including on the streets at times as an adolescent — and was trying to rebuild ties with her father when he ended up moving back to Anchorage due to medical issues, causing more strain.
“She did not care if he was so sick he had to go to the doctor there…that’s how she saw it,” Nierstheimer said. But even though that rift would eventually be soothed “by the time it was all said and done it wasn’t enough. She wasn’t done with her dad.”
Similar anxieties have persisted, such as in 2018 when Nierstheimer was medevaced to Anchorage with a broken shoulder (“she was so scared that another one was going to fall from her…she ran to friends and got a ticket,” her mother said) and when Johnston was incarcerated this fall.
“I had so many dreams while I was in jail that you died,” Johnston said after her release when she saw her mother, according to Nierstheimer, who’s now confined to a wheelchair due to medical ailments.
Johnston’s death is the second officer-involved shooting in Juneau this year involving a person experiencing homelessness. Steven Kissack was killed on Front Street in a confrontation that lasted more than 15 minutes when he ran in the direction of one of the officers while wielding a knife. A state investigation found the officers’ use of lethal force was justified, but the incident spurred an outcry among many about the circumstances that allowed Kissack to live on the street for several years without getting help to stabilize his life.
The incident involving Johnston escalated to a fatal confrontation when, after threatening a person with a hammer at the convenience store, she kept walking toward police officers while holding a hatchet despite orders to stop and a taser being deployed against her, according to a JPD information release.
As with Kissack’s death, Nierstheimer said she wishes her daughter had gotten help that would have prevented the initial encounter from occurring.
“I tried to talk to her and try to get her to find someone in any kind of field,” Nierstheimer said when asked about recent conversations with her daughter. “I told her ‘I don’t even care if they just stand on the corner and they might be some kind of counselor’ — to just have someone to talk to because she has been spinning and reeling.”
Nierstheimer said she also tried to provide her daughter what practical help was possible, including bedding she was using up until the time she was killed. But she said she wishes recognition and help could come from the community when people like her daughter are in situations they may not be aware of or able to recover from on their own.
“We’re all people and for whatever reason we do sometimes — because of either heartache, hurt or whatever — we just sit down in life and we give up for a while, and we’re stagnant for a while,” she said. “We don’t progress forward because maybe forward is too scary without the person we just left behind…but not many people sit and try to help others, and be that stepping stone for someone else to progress.”
• Contact Mark Sabbatini at mark.sabbatini@juneauempire.com or (907) 957-2306.
