A Tragic Death’s Power to Divide a City

Other people have been killed here by city police, six in the past two years.

But none has triggered a cry of protest as sustained as the one surrounding the death of Tyisha Miller. None has so divided the city’s predominantly white police department and its black residents.

Six months after the African American teenager died in a hail of gunfire from four white officers, the two sides have only hardened their positions. A resolution to the bitter feelings seems more distant than ever.

Perhaps the only agreement so far is that the shooting was tragic: In the wake of a 911 call for medical help, Miller, who had passed out in her locked car, was shot 12 times by the officers called to give her aid.

The officers say they were rushing--with the best of intentions--to save Miller. But they didn’t expect her to reach for a gun in her lap when they broke the driver’s side window. They had failed to rouse her by shouting and pounding on the car.

Miller’s family alleges that police acted hastily and recklessly and that the officers gave none of the careful thought they would have shown for a white woman in distress. Some say the officers sought an excuse to shoot Miller because she was black.

Those assertions are being investigated by the U.S. attorney’s office.

But many other questions remain for residents of Riverside, last year named an All-America City.

“How much more can this community take? Everybody has already picked their side. When are we going to begin a healing process? Who’s going to take that leadership role?” wonders Riverside Police Chief Jerry Carroll. “They all need to knock this off. We need to get away from this group thing. When are people going to realize this and wake up?”

Both sides are growing increasingly angry over what they have seen as partial justice.

The Riverside County district attorney and the state attorney general’s office concluded last month that the four officers exercised poor judgment when they killed Miller but were acting in self-defense. Therefore, they would not be prosecuted.

Police were relieved. Miller’s family was furious.

Then, earlier this month, Chief Carroll decided to fire the four officers. Barred by privacy laws from disclosing specific reasons, he says only that the officers strayed from department guidelines.

Miller’s supporters applauded the decision, but the police rank-and-file was angered.

In protest, officers here began cutting their hair--some got crew cuts, others shaved their heads, further straining relations. Here they are, said some activists, revealing themselves as skinheads.

Meanwhile, demonstrators march weekly, chanting, among other slogans, “No justice, no peace, no murdering police!”

They enlisted the marquee support of such national civil rights activists as the Rev. Jesse Jackson, Martin Luther King III, the Rev. Al Sharpton, comedian Dick Gregory and U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles).

Last week, officers showed up en masse at City Council chambers and two representatives spoke. They asked for support from the council members, reminding them how police shot a gunman who had taken some council members hostage last year at City Hall.

Other officers are walking door to door this weekend, leaving fliers asking residents to show their support. Department members are also launching a local newspaper advertising campaign to “put out the facts” behind the shooting.

Police Det. Jeffrey Joseph, president of the Riverside Police Officers’ Assn., said his members are convinced that the four officers are being fired because the chief buckled under to political pressure.

He said community tensions can be eased if police critics quiet themselves. But Joseph said he is not willing to sit down and meet with the Rev. Bernell Butler--Miller’s cousin--and other critics, because “he’s called me and my police department racist.”

Federal Decision May Take 6 Months

This teeter-totter of emotions is not expected to end soon.

Assistant U.S. Atty. Mike Gennaco said it will be another six months before the U.S. Department of Justice decides whether to prosecute the officers for possible criminal civil rights violations. His office may also investigate reports by shooting witnesses that one officer mentioned “a Kwanzaa gathering”--referring to the African American cultural holiday--as grieving relatives gathered after the shooting, and that another told colleagues to brace for “the Watts wail.”

The family has filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against the city and hired attorney Johnnie L. Cochran Jr. The city finds itself in the precarious position of defending the actions of officers who are being fired for misconduct.

Community leaders are weary, wondering what can be done. There is talk of establishing a citizen board to review police shootings, and an annual report card on race relations.

“Maybe what needs to happen is, the different viewpoints need to sit down and have a dialogue--where they talk not at each other, but to each other,” said Ameal Moore.

As the only African American on the Riverside City Council, Moore feels an enormous burden. “I try to walk a middle course and be a bridge to both sides of the issue . . . but sometimes too much is expected of me. I can’t leap tall buildings,” he said.

Critics said city officials reacted to the killing like a deer caught in the headlights. The city hired a public relations firm to offer crisis management advice, fueling suspicions of a cover-up.

Mayor Ron Loveridge, a political science professor at UC Riverside, points out that Riverside was named one of the nation’s 10 All-America Cities last year by a national civic organization, in part for successfully embracing its racial and ethnic diversity.

Then this--the TV news, the headlines--none of it good.

Daily Protests Called Divisive

Who should take the reins now?

“The leadership of the city,” Loveridge answered. “It has to come from the elected leadership, the business community, the ethnic groups. There needs to be an emerging consensus that it’s time to move toward ‘never again,’ and building a better and safer community.”

Demonstrators, he said, are dividing the city. Soon, he added, he may ask them to stop.

Carroll, who has shot four people--none fatally--during his 26 years with the department, said, “Enough is enough.”

“The police association is gaining momentum and that will be destructive,” Carroll said. “It’s tearing this community apart. And the momentum of the [Tyisha Miller] steering committee is also tearing this community apart and is also destructive.”

There are divisions, he said, even within his department. He said he’s received e-mail from officers in support of the firings, but who have still gotten haircuts--apparently succumbing to peer pressure.

Neither side seems ready to make peace.

Butler, the minister, credits the ongoing rallies and marches for enlightening community leaders about the problem of racism in Riverside in general, and among its police officers in particular.

He said the weekly marches may end only when the four officers exhaust their appeals and are finally dismissed. But the campaign will continue, he said, to end other racial inequities that he says exist in the community. He credits the marches, too, for moving the black community to play a larger role in local politics.

“The community is a lot stronger today,” maintains Butler, who quit his job as an apprentice utility lineman in order to focus on his cousin’s death. “I think the police will think twice now before they pull some unjust things on us.”

Measuring racism is difficult, and in Riverside its existence has been reexamined in the wake of Miller’s death. According to 1990 census figures, Riverside has a population of 250,800, with whites making up about 45%; Latinos, 26%; African Americans, 7%; and Asians, 5%.

Indeed, Riverside took pride in embracing its ethnic diversity. A statue of Martin Luther King Jr., financed through private donations, stands at City Hall. The city was the first in California to name a high school after King.

“If you put aside the Tyisha Miller shooting, you could reasonably conclude that Riverside is actually a very progressive place,” said Jack Clarke Jr., an African American attorney and a 30-year resident who led a citizens committee this spring to review the use of deadly force by city police.

Moore, the black councilman, said he never saw a race problem.

“It was news to me,” he said, “until my own sons told me, ‘Dad, this has been going on for years.’ I didn’t know that, and I was appalled. Maybe our young people are used to it, and figure it won’t do any good to complain.”

Now, Moore said, he is aware of the distrust in the black community toward local police. The fear is heightened, he said, by the officers’ haircut protest, which he and others find intimidating.

He said he is warning black youths these days, “If you’re stopped [by police], don’t move. Don’t you quiver.”