Officer Not Charged in Killing of Unarmed Man

Although they acknowledge that a police officer shot and killed an unarmed man, Riverside County prosecutors said Wednesday that the Moreno Valley patrolman did not commit a crime and will not be charged in the incident.

Chief Deputy Dist. Atty. Mike Soccio said a black glove Dante Ramon Meniefield was wearing was mistaken for a gun in the frenetic, dark moments before the March 10 shooting.

“I think that was very, very significant,” Soccio said. “The initial statements [Officer Robert Marks] made at the scene all had to do with the black glove, or a black object he thought was a gun. I think that was crucial.”

The white officer’s shooting of Meniefield, who was black, outraged many in Riverside County’s African American community. Family members and activists Wednesday said they were not surprised by the district attorney’s decision.

“They shot him with his hands up, for no reason,” said Meniefield’s mother, Donna Michelle Meniefield. “But I knew this was coming. Cops are for cops. They work together, and I already knew they weren’t going to convict one of their own.”

Moreno Valley community activist Gwyn Paschal-Hammond said many African Americans in the region remain angry over the December 1998 shooting of a black woman, Tyisha Miller, by four white police officers in the adjacent city of Riverside.

The Meniefield shooting has only stoked distrust of police in the black community, Paschal-Hammond said.

“They are lying,” she said. “It was an execution.”

Just after midnight March 10, authorities say, Meniefield was drinking beer and smoking marijuana in an alcove inside a vacant apartment with a friend, Reshaad Roberts. They were seen by Marks and his partner, Officer Dion Davis, who were on routine patrol in an area known for drug activity, vandalism and break-ins.

The apartment had no electricity, so the officers were using flashlights. They shone their light first on Roberts, who had his hands up. When they moved the light toward Meniefield, authorities say, he quickly raised his hands. That, in combination with the black gloves, led Marks to believe he was in danger, and led him to shoot, prosecutors concluded. Meniefield, 23, was killed by a single shot to the head.

Soccio said much of the blame for the incident must be shouldered by Meniefield and Roberts.

The two men were hiding, Soccio said, and could have called out to the officers and avoided a sudden confrontation in the alcove.

“An unarmed man is dead,” Soccio said. “It’s a tragic loss when anybody gets killed unnecessarily. I feel bad for the Meniefield family. I also feel very bad for the deputy. The responsibility for the death is shared by all concerned.”

And, Soccio said, the fact that Roberts is still alive makes it clear that the shooting was not motivated by racial bias.

“If the officer went in there just to kill black people, what would have stopped him from shooting both of them?” Soccio asked. “There is no hidden motive.”

Paschal-Hammond dismissed Soccio’s rationale.

“I don’t think that some parts of white society really understand the message that they are sending to young African men,” she said. “Basically, they are saying: We can kill you. We can say your hands were up, but that you had a glove on, so we killed you.”

The decision by the district attorney’s office, however, although it affirms an earlier recommendation from the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department, does not end the case.

Though Marks is back on the job, the U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles is investigating whether Meniefield’s civil rights were violated.

And attorney Johnnie L. Cochran Jr. filed a $100-million wrongful death claim last month against the Sheriff’s Department. The city of Moreno Valley contracts with the Sheriff’s Department for patrolling services.