Suspect Accused City of Not Helping Minority Youths

Joseph Neale’s relationship with the city of Riverside began as quietly as the chess games he loves.

But in the eight years he worked as a part-time chess coach at a city community center, Neale’s zeal for helping disadvantaged youths was tempered by a conviction that government was shortchanging their needs.

By the time he was fired in 1994, Neale had written and sent a 57-page treatise on discrimination to city officials and President Clinton. He complained bitterly to his co-workers at the community center that city leaders, local merchants and corporate interests had let minority youths down.

On Tuesday, Neale, a mail carrier since 1989 for the U.S. Postal Service in Fontana, was apparently done complaining. He walked into a City Hall conference room and allegedly opened fire, wounding the mayor and two City Council members before being shot by police. Neale also allegedly shot three police officers who stormed the conference room, wounding two. A third was protected by his bulletproof vest.

“It’s kind of a shock to know that such a nice man could do something like this,” said John Schofield, 23, who lives in the apartment above Neale in a tidy complex on Linden Street in Riverside. Schofield said he knew Neale only as a polite neighbor who lived alone in a neat apartment decorated in soft pastels, greeted him warmly and kept his postal worker uniforms scrupulously clean.

Co-workers at the Fontana post office described Neale as punctual, polite and solitary. Tuesday was his day off.

Neale “did everything by the manual. He took his job really, really serious,” said a letter carrier who has worked at the post office for 11 years and identified himself only as Tom. “It’s really sad that this had to happen.”

This month, three years after Neale filed a wrongful termination suit against the city, claiming that he was fired for--among other things--expressing his views, Neale was to get his day in court. The suit was scheduled for a jury trial Oct. 19.

In the suit, Neale, who is African American, said he was fired because of his age, 48, and his race.

But the core of Neale’s complaint against the city, according to court documents, was his belief that he was fired in retaliation for the essay he sent as far as the White House.

In a response filed with the Riverside County court, attorneys for the city contended that “nothing could be further than the truth.”

The reasons for the firing, the attorneys wrote, would be revealed at trial.

Titled “An Open Letter to My Country, America: Observations on Life in America as Seen From the Perspective of an African American Citizen,” Neale’s essay complained of state oppression of blacks.

Mayor Ron Loveridge read the long essay and wrote Neale a letter of commendation, praising his work with the youngsters. But one month later, Neale was fired from his 6-hour-a-week job at the community center, where he had been, by all accounts, passionately devoted to chess.

Johnthan Purifoy said he and his cousin, Darrell, learned to play chess from Neale at the community center.

“He was an easygoing guy. He didn’t have a short temper. He was real patient and showed me how to make my moves,” Purifoy said.