NAACP Labels Dubose Report a Joke, Wants U.S., State Probes

Dismissing a district attorney’s report on the fatal police shooting of a Southeast San Diego man as “an absolute joke,” the head of the San Diego chapter of the NAACP said Wednesday that his group will ask the U.S. attorney and state attorney general to investigate.

Daniel Weber, president of the local chapter of the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People, charged that there is a need for state and federal authorities to review a San Diego police officer’s killing of Tommie C. Dubose in his home last March “because it’s obvious that the district attorney . . . isn’t willing to do an adequate job.”

‘Reluctant to Prosecute’

“What it comes down to is, this district attorney is very reluctant to prosecute any police officers who violate the rights of persons of color,” Weber said. “This is not an isolated case. It is part of a very disturbing pattern we’ve seen in San Diego County . . . where the color of the victim seems to be a critical factor in determining what will be done.”

Reacting angrily to Weber’s comments, Steve Casey, a spokesman for Dist. Atty. Edwin Miller, described the allegation that race plays a role in prosecutors’ decisions as “unmitigated garbage.”

“A person in a public forum ought to know better than that,” Casey said. “That has all the sounds of a person who beats against a tub because he’s more interested in the noise a drum makes than in the truth.”

In a 51-page report released by police Tuesday, Miller’s office ruled that the killing of Dubose was justifiable, but it criticized how undercover police burst into the victim’s house while serving a search warrant during a massive drug sweep.

Saying that officers did not adequately identify themselves or allow enough time before bursting into Dubose’s living room, Miller’s report described the officers’ breaking down of the front door as an “unlawful entry” that led to the 56-year-old man’s death.

But the report concluded that the shooting was justifiable because the policeman who fired the shots that killed Dubose feared for his own life and those of his fellow officers. Officer Carlos Garcia shot Dubose four times in the back and once in the face during a struggle between Dubose and officer Andy Rios in which Rios’ gun discharged, the report said.

‘Should Not Have Died’

“The premature entry into the home set in motion a series of events which ended all too quickly in the shooting of Mr. Dubose, who should not have died a violent death,” Miller’s report stated, noting that Dubose might not have realized that Rios, who led the armed charge into the house, was a police officer.

“At the moment Officer Garcia fired, he reasonably believed that he and other officers were in immediate peril of great bodily injury or death, thereby creating legal justification for his use of deadly force,” the report added. “The tragedy is that the moment could and should have been avoided.”

Criticizing the district attorney’s report as “inconsistent and illogical,” NAACP head Weber said he found it “utterly inconceivable” that Miller could decide that police violated the law and still conclude that Dubose’s killing was justifiable.

“That’s contradictory, absurd, and unreasonable, and no rational person could possibly come to that conclusion,” Weber said. “It’s obvious that the D.A. was looking for a reason not to prosecute in this case.”

But Miller spokesman Casey argued that “the apparent inconsistency would appear to stem from a basic misunderstanding of what the word ‘illegal’ means in this instance.”

“It does not mean that a criminal act occurred,” Casey said. It means, he said, that the entry, in his office’s view, violated laws requiring officers to properly identify themselves. “The consequence of that is the suppression of any evidence that comes from that entry, not criminal action against the officers involved. The word ‘unlawful’ is unfortunate. It might be better to say that the entry was improper or inadequate.”

Weber said he plans to put his request that the state attorney general and U.S. attorney investigate Dubose’s slaying in writing within several days.

Expressing similar displeasure with the outcome of Miller’s probe, several other black community leaders Wednesday also called for investigations.

The Rev. Ellis Casson, president of the Interdenominational Ministerial Alliance, charged that the local investigations to date “have made a mockery . . . out of the system.” That criticism, Casson emphasized, applied not only to Miller’s report but also to the county Grand Jury’s recent decision to study allegations of inmate beatings by deputy sheriffs in county jails, shortly after jury members said that they did not have time to review the Dubose killing.

“We’ll all continue to be concerned until justice is done,” Casson said. “We tried to work the system; we tried to encourage our community to be patient and to use the system, only to find that the system doesn’t work for us.

“If we can’t resolve this locally, then it has to go to the next step. This thing has to be resolved one way or the other. We’re just tired of the kind of sham and the kind of put-on and put-off that they do to this community.”

Prominent black businessman Willie Morrow added: “It is kind of confusing when you read the papers and you get one report that says that they’re criticizing and another one says, ‘I forgive you.’ I just think there needs to be a clear-cut statement made as to what really happened.”

Dubose, a naval base instructor who was known in Southeast San Diego as a vocal opponent of drug abuse, was shot March 12 during a drug crackdown in which undercover narcotics officers served a number of search warrants, primarily in black and Latino areas.

Drugs Reportedly Bought

An informer allegedly had purchased illegal drugs at the Dubose home, according to the search warrant obtained by police to enter Dubose’s house. Police also described the home, near 50th Street and Federal Boulevard, as a known drug house, and portrayed one of Dubose’s sons as a suspected drug offender.

According to the police account of the shooting, when officers dressed in yellow police jackets announced their arrival, Dubose rushed into another room, where police later found guns that the victim used for hunting. Police forced open the door, charging with guns drawn into the living room where Dubose, his wife and a son were watching television.

Rios told investigators that Dubose threw a drink in his face, and that, moments later, a struggle ensued in which his service revolver discharged, injuring neither him nor Dubose. After Rios shouted, “He’s got my gun!” Garcia, who said he was worried that his colleague had been shot, fired five times at Dubose.

Dubose’s wife, Mary, has told investigators that she never heard police announce their presence and that she did not at first recognize them as police officers.

Referring to that account, the NAACP’s Weber charged that the police “created the situation, knowing that Mr. Dubose would be compelled to defend his home.”

Men With Guns

“He may not have even known these were police officers--all he knew is that men with guns had broken down his door,” Weber said. “But, more to the point, California law says that even police officers with search warrants must first knock and announce their purpose, unless there are extenuating circumstances. The district attorney admits that didn’t happen in this case, but then, rather incredibly, says that doesn’t matter, that the shooting was justifiable.”

Besides asking the state attorney general and U.S. attorney to investigate the shooting, Weber added, the NAACP probably will make the same request of the new Grand Jury that is to be impaneled July 1.

“But going to the grand jury is almost a waste of time,” Weber said. “How much confidence can we have in the Grand Jury when it’s the district attorney who presents the evidence there?”