A Light on Riverside Police

Separate federal investigations into the Riverside Police Department and the police shooting death of Tyisha Miller in Riverside last December might not ease tensions but they could provide more of what everyone professes to want: information.

Miller was alone and passed out inside her locked car at a gas station--with a gun in her lap. Relatives, unable to rouse her, called the police. The four officers who responded decided to break a window in the car and grab the gun. When the window broke, the officers said, Miller awakened and allegedly reached for the weapon. Officers shot her 12 times. Had the police placed themselves in a position in which they felt they had to shoot?

Riverside County Dist. Atty. Grover Trask later noted that the officers had been called to investigate a dangerous situation involving a firearm. “Their response to that situation was a hastily planned attempt to break out the window and grab the gun on the victim’s lap. . . . It was a judgment call and a mistake in their judgment. . . . “

Trask said he asked the Justice Department and the state attorney general’s office to investigate possible civil rights violations because of racial comments allegedly made by other police officers after the incident.

Both Trask and the state attorney general’s office declared that the officers acted in self-defense and would not be prosecuted. Then, Riverside Police Chief Jerry Carroll dismissed the four officers involved in the shooting; he offered little explanation, citing restrictions placed on personnel matters.

One of the federal probes is an FBI criminal investigation into the death of Miller. The second investigation casts a wider net in an effort to determine whether there are “patterns or practices” within the Riverside police force that deprive people of their civil rights.

The climate in Riverside has grown worse amid continuing protests by the supporters of Miller’s family and others, including some outside civil rights leaders. Police protesting the firings haven’t improved matters either, with some having cut their hair so close that they could be mistaken for skinheads. That’s not going to ease tensions.

In this atmosphere, it’s hoped that the federal investigations can get down to the roots of what transpired that December night and shine a broader light on the workings of an insular police department. The growing divide between Riverside police and minority residents won’t be bridged without more facts at hand.