Public Trust Still Eludes Riverside Police 5 Years After Fatal Shooting

Riverside police officers carry tiny digital devices to record every encounter, have a cache of nonlethal weapons at their disposal and can tap veteran commanders at any time to guide them though volatile situations.

Despite those improvements, and an unprecedented change in leadership and training to uproot the agency’s “cowboy culture,” public trust remains elusive.

Five years have passed since police killed Tyisha Miller, a 19-year-old black woman, but members of the clergy, community leaders and others say more needs to be done: increasing the number of minority police officers, nurturing trust between the community and police, and changing officers’ attitudes and perceptions.”Everyone is trying to move forward and trying to put the past behind them,” said the Rev. Paul Munford of the New Joy Baptist Church, where Miller’s funeral was held. “But there are some bitter tastes” that remain.

Since the Dec. 28, 1998, shooting, the city has spent more than $16.1 million on outside legal counsel, training, a civilian-review commission, a traffic-stop analysis and more. More than half of that amount has been spent on equipment and personnel for the Police Department, and millions more will be earmarked for similar improvements in coming years.

Riverside has hired 117 new officers over the last three years, meaning that more than half the street patrol force was not with the department at the time of the shooting. Riverside officers receive four times the amount of training they would in most police departments.

But to mend public perception of the Police Department and make Riverside a safer city, communities and citizens must remain vigilant, vocal and fully engaged, said Chani Beeman, chairwoman of the city’s Human Relations Commission.

“My biggest concern is community involvement. That’s a piece that feels like it’s waning. I want to see more faces at the table,” she said. “I do believe our hardest work is ahead of us.”

Over the past half-century, Riverside’s race relations have ebbed and flowed. In 1965, its school district became one of the first in the state to voluntarily desegregate. Three decades later, three police officers beat a drunk illegal immigrant and threw him in a shallow lake.

The city was ill-prepared for what happened that early morning in December 1998. Police responded to a call of a young woman passed out in a locked car in the parking lot of a gas station. She had a loaded .380-caliber, chrome handgun on her lap.

Miller was foaming at the mouth, and her eyes were rolling back in her head. The officers hastily hatched a plan to break a window and snatch the gun. But once the glass shattered, there was chaos. Three officers said Miller appeared to reach toward the gun, and shots rang out. Twenty-four bullets were fired; half pierced Miller’s head, arm, chest, thigh, shoulder and back.

Two policemen at the scene but not involved in the shooting saw Miller’s grief-stricken relatives and said the sound was a “Watts death wail” and that the shooting would “ruin their Kwanzaa.” Those comments, when they became public, only fed community outrage.

Police officials initially said that Miller had fired her weapon, which later proved to be untrue.

Within days, reporters from around the world descended on Riverside. Prominent civil-rights activists followed, from attorney Johnnie L. Cochran Jr. sitting on the stage during Miller’s open-casket viewing to the Rev. Jesse Jackson hosting a candlelight vigil and fundraiser for the family’s legal fund.

“It’s almost like riding fast currents that you are simply a passenger on,” said Riverside Mayor Ron Loveridge. “It became very difficult to stop it, to redirect it.”

Four white officers were cleared of criminal wrongdoing but were eventually fired, as was the sergeant who made the Kwanzaa remark. They all sued, claiming they were wrongfully terminated. The Miller family also sued.

The city settled with Miller’s family for $3 million, $2.5 million of which was paid by insurance carriers. The city also settled with three of the five officers, giving them disability retirements that pay half of their salary tax-free for life. Two also received cash payments totaling $150,000. The last unresolved lawsuit, a federal civil-rights claim by two of the fired officers, is set to go to trial next year.

But the larger question raised by the shooting was whether racism was a systemic problem in the Riverside Police Department, the same organization where scores of officers reacted to the firings of their four colleagues by shaving their heads as a show of support.

An investigation by state Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer found that the Police Department had a “dysfunctional relationship” with the community.

“That’s a devastating finding. Talk about community policing. That’s a death blow,” said Police Chief Russ Leach, who succeeded Jerry Carroll, the chief at the time of the shooting. “If you’re an alcoholic, you’ve got to be all the way down before you can start up again. That investigation said, ‘You guys are at rock bottom.’ ”

Five months into Leach’s tenure, Lockyer imposed a historic reform plan that called for improved training, supervision and monitoring that the city grudgingly agreed to in 2001. Great strides have been made toward breaking down a “cowboy culture,” Lockyer said. “They’ve made enormous progress in implementing the reforms. Our monitor ... described it as nothing short of remarkable.”

More experienced officers work during the graveyard shift, which used to be predominantly staffed by the youngest officers. Watch commanders must be lieutenants, not sergeants, and are on duty 24 hours a day. There is a smaller ratio of officers to supervisors. Roll calls, which used to have a “loosey-goosey atmosphere,” Leach said, are monitored and are more formal.

Officers carry record their encounters with citizens. A wireless, digital, visual recording system has been installed on 10 police cars and will eventually be installed on 25 more. Less-than-lethal weapons can be found in the trunks of patrol cars.

“We’ve come a long way,” Leach said. “We’ve got a long way to go.”

Minority recruitment remains low. Three-quarters of all sworn officers are white, while less than half the population is white. Efforts to draw more officers from the black community have been the toughest, Leach said. “This is the community we harmed the most in the Miller days,” he said. “We’ve got to work hard to earn that trust.”

Community leaders, who praise Leach’s efforts, are optimistic but reserved.

Munford, of the New Joy Baptist Church, said the subject remains a sore one, partly because the officers who shot Miller will be paid annually for life. They gained from the tragedy.”

Munford said the passage of time has helped ease tensions between police and residents. “We have seen some calm because things have kind of simmered down from the aftermath of tragedy,” he said. “But it’s not like we are inviting the police into our house, sitting down at our table. That goes a little too far.”

Indeed, some said the department has so far done the easiest work, buying new technology and implementing new policies and training programs. The bigger question, the one that’s hardest to gauge, is how the officers feel about Riverside’s minority communities.

“They’ve made some really big strides. However, there’s more that needs to be done than checking off a list of reforms,” said Mary Shelton, a reporter with the Riverside-based Black Voice News. “What needs to change and what’s going to take much longer to change but is every bit as important is to change the attitudes that led to the shooting.”

Lockyer and community leaders also said sustaining momentum is key to moving forward. Lockyer noted that previous attempts at reform in the 1990s failed: “Unfortunately, when the will to continue diminished, the bad behavior reemerged.”