Police Training Is Focus After Driver’s Slaying

A motorist appears unconscious--perhaps passed-out drunk--behind the wheel of an idling vehicle, and there’s a gun in full view.

How can police seize the weapon without a tragedy ensuing?

The situation occurs so rarely that officers receive little or no training for it. But the controversial shooting death of Tyisha Miller by Riverside police recently was not without precedent.

Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies shot and killed a motorist in West Hollywood seven years ago in circumstances strikingly similar to the Miller shooting.

In that case, deputies found Charles King, a 27-year-old film studio grip, slumped behind the wheel of his pickup--with his hand on a gun--at a traffic light on Melrose Avenue. When a deputy lunged inside to grab the handgun, King awoke and began struggling and the car lurched forward. Deputies fired 40 times, killing King instantly.

The King case, which culminated in an out-of-court financial settlement, provides a window into how officers deal with the unusual and potentially volatile situation that unfolded again in Riverside several weeks ago.

On Dec. 28, Miller, 19, was found sitting unresponsive in her locked, idling car at a Riverside gas station, a gun in her lap. When a police officer broke the driver’s window to grab the weapon, police said, Miller moved for the gun. Four officers fired 24 shots, killing her instantly.

The Riverside Police Department is wrapping up its investigation, and is expected to forward sealed findings to the Riverside County district attorney’s office Friday. County prosecutors, who have opened a grand jury investigation into the shooting, are expected to announce in March whether criminal charges will be filed against the officers.

The FBI also is investigating to determine whether the U.S. Justice Department should mount a full-blown probe of the shooting, which has generated widespread notoriety, partly because the victim was black and the officers were not.

Meanwhile, Riverside Mayor Ron Loveridge has convened a citizens panel to review the Police Department’s use of deadly force.

The problem with such reviews, law enforcement experts say, is that they usually only consider the final moments of an unfolding incident to determine if lethal force was justified.

In the West Hollywood case, which drew little publicity, an on-scene supervisor was suspended for five days, but none of the officers involved were criminally prosecuted.

Los Angeles County prosecutors concluded, after a five-month investigation, that there was “insufficient evidence to show that the actions of each of these deputies was unreasonable under the circumstances.”

Different Perspectives

Deputies said they were justified in shooting King because he struggled with a deputy and his vehicle abruptly moved forward. Miller was shot, police said, because the officers believed she reached for her gun.

A larger question is whether the police tactics were so flawed that officers were themselves responsible for escalating the situations to the point of gunfire.

In Miller’s case, the shattering of the window likely startled her, prompting her to instinctively reach for her gun, according to several police tactics experts.

And King, they say, was likely surprised when the deputy reached across his lap for the gun. The car may have jerked forward because the driver’s foot moved off the brake pedal--and perhaps onto the accelerator--during the struggle.

Criticism of the King shooting was contained in a 359-page report issued the next year by retired Superior Court Judge James G. Kolts. He was commissioned by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors to investigate the Sheriff’s Department, partly because of a spate of controversial officer-involved shootings.

“Our staff reviewed many cases in which officers unnecessarily walked into or created situations which ultimately required the use of deadly force,” Kolts reported, leading to a discussion on the King shooting:

“Rather than closing off the area and offering the subject a chance to surrender, one deputy opened the driver’s door and lunged across the front seat. Predictably, the suspect was startled awake. . . .”

It continued: “We found no evaluations in [officer-involved-shooting] reports that directly addressed the question of whether the confrontation could have been avoided in the first place.”

Ultimately, the board agreed with its legal counsel that the deputies “had never received any training on the plan they devised, and . . . should have used a different procedure to resolve the situation they encountered.”

The deputies’ plan to remove King’s gun, the board was told by its counsel, was “dangerous to the sheriff’s deputies themselves and created a situation where Charles King would likely be shot.”

The board paid King’s widowed mother $650,000, rather than risk a higher award in court.

The county’s analysis echoed one given by a nationally respected police tactics expert, James Fyfe, who reviewed the King shooting for the mother’s lawsuit.

In words that Fyfe now says could relate as well to the Tyisha Miller shooting, he wrote in his affidavit on the King case:

“Once the [sheriff’s] personnel in this case foolishly decided that they would surround King’s truck at close range while one of their number reached into his vehicle and tried to grab his gun out of his hand, they virtually preordained that King would be shot.”

Fyfe said the plan to grab King’s gun was “so ludicrous and needlessly dangerous that it would have been rejected by any reasonable, competent and well-trained police supervisor.”

The deputy who came up with the plan was a seven-year traffic officer. In the Miller shooting, all four Riverside police officers had less than five years experience. It remains unclear what role was played by a police sergeant who was also at the Riverside scene.

Not in the Books

Police are normally trained to take cover and order an armed motorist out of a vehicle--assuming that the officers get the motorist’s attention. However, the state’s Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training, which establishes training guidelines for police academies, has not formulated training procedures for handling the more rare cases of motorists who are not awake but are armed.

Such cases become fodder for discussions in training courses, said Mario Rodriguez, a consultant to the state agency.

“There’s a constant eye on how to make things better, because these [situations] have a tremendous impact on the officers themselves,” Rodriguez said. “These kinds of situations will shake things up.”

What did the Sheriff’s Department learn from the King shooting?

Department spokesman Lt. Doyle Campbell said, “If we can change our training to incorporate these kinds of situations, we certainly do.” But he said he could offer “no direct answer” on what changes, if any, were implemented.

Because officers cannot be trained for every situation, they should approach each with due consideration of the possible consequences, experts say.

Jeoffrey Alpert, a police training consultant, said Riverside police should have anticipated that Miller would have been startled by the breaking window and might have reached for the gun. The officers should have roused her by creating loud noises or bumping or jiggling her car, he said.

(Riverside police have said the officers shouted at Miller and announced themselves, then knocked on her window before breaking it.)

“As long as she’s asleep, she’s not a threat,” Alpert said. “It’s not likely she’s going to shoot someone. But just by being awakened, she may have jumped or moved an arm that officers felt was a threat.”

Riverside police said they moved promptly because a relative and a friend at the scene who had called 911 told them Miller appeared to be foaming at the mouth.

But medical concerns should not have caused police to act hastily, Alpert said. “Prudence and patience are more important than putting yourself in harm’s way,” he said.

If officers felt the need to break the window, Alpert said, they should have done it from a distance, then assessed her reaction.

Fyfe agrees. “Police are trained to surround a car, light it up as much as possible, use their [flashing light bar] and sirens--and remain behind cover and direct the occupant out of the car,” he said. “The worst thing an officer can do is approach a vehicle where they know someone is armed.”

Riverside police spokesman Sgt. Chris Manning said officers are “trained to be decisive” because “there’s an inherent expectation by the public that we’ll take charge of the scene that they’ve called us to.”