Rev. Jackson Urges U.S. Probe of Police Shooting

The Rev. Jesse Jackson called Tuesday for U.S. Atty. Gen. Janet Reno to investigate the death of Tyisha Miller, who was unresponsive in her parked car with a gun in her lap when she was shot by Riverside police officers.

“Do not leave this under a bush in Riverside,” Jackson said at a news conference before a benefit dinner for the Tyisha Miller Defense Fund. “This is a national symbol that must be challenged. This case deserves the highest profile. . . . The president must speak to this.”

Miller, 19, who was black, was sitting in her locked, idling car with a flat tire at a Riverside gas station on Dec. 28. When a police officer determined that she was unresponsive, he broke the driver’s window to grab the gun in her lap, police said. Miller moved for the gun, police said, and four officers fired a total of 24 shots, killing her instantly.

Jackson, who was the keynote speaker at the $50-a-person dinner at UC Riverside, had met earlier in the day with Gov. Gray Davis. Jackson asked him and the state attorney general to urge Reno to investigate the death.

Attorney Johnny L. Cochran Jr., who also attended the dinner, had met privately with Miller’s family.

“This young woman could be anyone’s daughter,” Cochran said. “There’s this permissiveness of violence in the land. It has to stop.”

Jackson said the police officers responded like a “death squad,” and he questioned why they believed Miller presented such a threat.

“What would prompt policemen to shoot that many times into the car. . . . ?” Jackson asked. “At best, it was excessive force. At worst, it was cold-blooded murder.”

The officers and a sergeant, who are on paid leave, should at least be suspended, he said. Jackson stopped short of calling for their firing.

Nosakhere Thomas, pastor of the Rainbow Community Praise Center in Rancho Cucamonga, said local religious leaders asked Jackson to come to Riverside.

“We don’t believe local authorities take us seriously,” Thomas said, “so we invited a national figure to keep the heat on.”

Tuesday night’s event, attended by about 400 people, was sponsored by the Urban League, the Congress of Racial Equality, Inland Agency--People Reaching Out, the Riverside Clergy Assn. and the Tyisha Miller Steering Committee, among other groups.

The Riverside Police Department is wrapping up its investigation and is expected to forward sealed findings to the Riverside County district attorney’s office within days. The department is awaiting completion of the Riverside County coroner’s report and forensic tests by the state Department of Justice.

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, in part 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.

Times staff writer Miles Corwin contributed to this report.