Phoenix Johnson works in political advocacy and education now, but around two decades ago, fresh out of the United States Air Force, she was planning on a career in medicine.
“Getting into the medical field was almost out of survival,” Johnson says. “I’ve always cared about people…I was a suicide intervention skills instructor, the youngest in the Air Force to do that. It hurts my heart to see people hurting, and I’ve hurt, and I haven’t had help when I needed it, and being an eldest sister, you know, I just kind of feel like that’s just ingrained in me.”
She was 26 when she moved to Ketchikan in the summer of 2011. The next year, she took a job in a lab run by Ketchikan Indian Community, an opportunity that felt deeply personal to her.
“I’m biracial. My mom is Indigenous, and my dad was a Coastie…And that’s how they met [when] he got stationed up in Alaska. And so I thought, ‘What a neat opportunity to be a part of my mother’s tribal community, and to give back and help people.'”
Johnson worked alongside one other technician in the lab, and they got along well. But the lab director, Dr. Richard McGrath, did not put her at ease. She had only been working in the lab for a few weeks when she said McGrath started to cross the line into her physical space.
“Immediately I could tell where he placed his body was unprofessional,” Johnson says. “The personal bubble wasn’t there.”
“It was a fairly small lab, and so, you know, I’m sure someone could justify, like, ‘There just wasn’t enough room. That’s why my pelvis just slid across you, right? Or, like, ‘I’m just grabbing for the gauze. That’s why I grazed your breast.'”
She recalls a moment when he called her into his office and pulled her chair closer to him so their knees were touching. When she tried to scoot her chair backwards, he pulled her close to him again. She recalls several other instances of inappropriate touching, including on her thigh, neck, and hair. She says he invited her to his home on Prince of Wales Island, which she declined. And then there was a slap.
He came in, and that was the morning that he like full on, slapped my butt, and there’s no mistaking that,” Johnson says. “It was underhand, slapping, cupping booty jiggle, all of it. And I was stunned, and I remember looking at him, and I was resolved, and I just said, ‘Never touch me like that again.’”
She reported McGrath to the tribe’s human resources department the same day, March 19, 2012. Three days later, she sent additional documentation, listing other instances of inappropriate touching and conversation. She met with the tribe’s human resources director, who said they would investigate.
KCAW reached out to Ketchikan Indian Community CEO Emily Edenshaw, who declined to comment.
Johnson says they weren’t taking the allegations seriously.
“I do recall being told, I don’t know if it was before or after the letter, HR saying, ‘Okay, well, clearly there’s an issue, so we’ll just have it so you guys interact very little. And I’m like, ‘Well, not really sure how that’s supposed to happen, because he’s the director. And that’s when it became very clear that, ‘Oh, I’m I’m the disposable one. They’re going to want to preserve a director, I guess.'”
A month later, on April 17, she received a response from KIC’s General Manager at the time, Debra Patton. The letter rejected Johnson’s sexual harassment claim, calling the incidents “non-intentional communication and physical contact.” It said McGrath’s actions may have been misinterpreted by Johnson due to his “casualness” in the office, and the physical touching of her hands and shoulders was intended, “to refresh your knowledge of blood withdrawing procedure.” It said invitations to McGrath’s home were standard for all employees. Furthermore, the letter said McGrath’s butt slap was accidental, and was intended for her back. It said they found “no witnesses to support the allegation [that] he touched [her] on the neck, thigh and hair,” but if she felt intimidated in the future, she should speak with human resources or a management staff member immediately.
The letter, which she says was delivered to her by the tribe’s former health administrator Brent Simcosky, said she could file a grievance in response to the investigation. Johnson says she filed a grievance right away. Within days, HR staff called her into a meeting, and told her she was fired. Johnson remembers crying as they immediately escorted her off the premises.
“Treating me as if I was some high threat or a criminal was that much more traumatizing,” Johnson recalls. “And then I’m just being dumped out on the sidewalk with no plan, no severance, no apology, no justice.”
KCAW has independently confirmed that McGrath worked for the Ketchikan Indian Community through at least 2013. A few years later, he was hired at Sitka Community Hospital. He was under contract there until he was placed on administrative leave in December 2018 after several sexual assault allegations were raised against him by three different women. He was charged in 2019 with 13 counts of felony sexual assault. Following a mistrial in 2022, on the first day of what was expected to be a lengthy trial in 2023, McGrath took a last-minute deal with the state. He pleaded guilty to third degree sexual assault, and was sentenced to two years in prison. KCAW reached out to McGrath’s legal representation for comment, but they did not respond.
Johnson believes that if McGrath’s actions had been addressed by Ketchikan Indian Community years ago, it could have prevented him from harming patients and medical staff in the future.
Last year, she happened across news coverage of McGrath’s Sitka arrest. She felt it was time to ensure that her story was heard.
“Being able to talk about this now means that my experience isn’t just invisible and it wasn’t erased. It means something, and there are so many survivors out there that don’t get their stories told,” Johnson says.
“Every time that we can tell these stories, it shines more light. You know, they say to drive out the dark with light,” she continues. “But it also, I think, hopefully inspires other people to be better. Even if somebody reads this and they decide, ‘Maybe I should go to therapy,’ [or] ‘Maybe I should tell my best friend this thing happened to me. Maybe somebody just needs that push to just try one more time.”
Johnson says she filed a grievance with the Indian Health Service earlier this year, but she’s skeptical of the state’s court system as a means for victims seeking justice. She says its “deference to state agencies supersedes its citizens in a way that feels inhumane.” Still, she’s optimistic that, if people act with integrity, those systems can be changed.
“We don’t need a system to have integrity, I try to teach people that. Every day I teach my daughter that you don’t need a law to tell you to be a decent human being,” Johnson says.
“The systems could be crummy, but if you have integrity, if we collectively have integrity we can fix the system, we can change the system, or we can work around the things that are not functioning as they should, or that are harming people.”
A civil case filed by one of McGrath’s victims in Sitka is being appealed before the Alaska Supreme Court.