SALT LAKE CITY, Ut. (AP) — The 39-year-old man shot and killed at a weekend “No Kings” protest in Salt Lake City was a successful fashion designer and former “Project Runway” contestant who devoted his life to celebrating artists from the Pacific Islands.
Arthur Folasa Ah Loo was killed when a man who was believed to be part of a peacekeeping team for the protest shot at a person brandishing a rifle at demonstrators, accidentally striking Ah Loo. Ah Loo later died at the hospital, authorities said.
Detectives don’t yet know why the alleged rifleman pulled out a weapon or ran from the peacekeepers, but they charged him with murder and accused him of creating the dangerous situation that led to Ah Loo’s death, Salt Lake City Police Chief Brian Redd said at a Sunday news conference.
The “self-taught” fashion designer from Samoa, known to many as Afa, was deeply connected to his culture and community, according to the website Creative Pacific, a nonprofit organization he co-founded to support artists from the Pacific Islands. Ah Loo’s designs, which often featured colorful geometric patterns, were inspired by his Samoan heritage.
Ah Loo leaves behind his wife and two young children, according to a GoFundMe for his family that raised over $100,000 in 48 hours.
He was a founder of Utah Pacific Fashion, an organization that celebrates artistic heritage from Oceania. Recently, he designed a garment for the star of the Disney Channel animated movie Moana 2, Hawaiian actor Auliʻi Cravalho.
Cravalho wore the outfit to the film’s red carpet premiere in Hawaii last November. She said in an interview with Vogue at the time that the design combined traditional and modern aesthetics from her culture. Ah Loo strung individual white Dovetail shells into a cape-like shape reminiscent of Hawaiian ʻahu ʻula—a feather cloak worn by ancient Hawaiian royalty, according to Vogue.
“This was the first time I was so active in helping to design a custom look, and Afa surpassed what I had envisioned,” says Cravalho told the magazine at the time.
