Police Shootings Riverside County

The four Riverside police officers who shot and killed 19-year-old Tyisha Miller after they found her sitting unresponsively in her car in December were informed Friday that they will be fired, according to city police union officials and the attorney for the officers. The notice of termination was given by Police Chief Jerry Carroll Friday afternoon, they said, sparking strong reaction from the city's police union that the decision was politically motivated and may lead to a job action.

A police chase involving a man who allegedly stole a car in Fontana ended early Friday at a California Highway Patrol roadblock on the Riverside Freeway when Riverside police shot the driver after he smashed his vehicle into a CHP car. The westbound lanes of the freeway were closed for eight hours at the Adams Street exit, causing severe traffic congestion on some Riverside surface streets until noon. The man was not immediately identified.

Newly released toxicology findings indicate that Tyisha Miller was under the influence of GHB, an illegal drug that can induce semiconsciousness and vomiting--the type of symptoms she was said to be exhibiting before she was shot and killed by four Riverside police officers in December 1998. Miller, 19, was slain by officers who said they found her unresponsive in her parked vehicle with a gun in her lap.

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.

To law enforcement authorities here, the shooting death of 16-year-old Johnny Lozano Jr. was a textbook example of justified use of force. Before he was struck down by 10 police bullets after a scuffle with Officer Darryl Hurt, Lozano, a former ward of the California Youth Authority, had hoisted a .22-caliber handgun in the air.

Almost two years after four white Riverside police officers shot and killed a black woman passed out in a car, the city has finalized a $3-million legal settlement with the woman's survivors, family representatives and attorneys involved in the case said Wednesday. Tyisha Miller's family will receive $500,000 immediately and is planning to accept the rest in installments over the next 15 years, said the Rev. Bernell Butler, Miller's cousin and a family spokesman.

The supervisor of the four Riverside police officers who fatally shot 19-year-old Tyisha Miller in her car last December has been told he will be fired, his attorney said Tuesday. Sgt. Gregory Preece, 38, who has been on the force for three years, will fight to keep his job, his lawyer said. Preece has been on paid administrative leave since early June. Preece faces firing for allegedly failing to stop the shooting and for allegedly making a racist remark at the scene.

In a rousing service Sunday, the Rev. DeWayne Butler implored his congregation to march for justice today, saying the district attorney's findings in the killing of Tyisha Miller underscore that "police cannot police police." "It's time to say enough is enough," said Butler, whose cousin, the 19-year-old Miller, was shot a dozen times after police were called because she was apparently asleep with the gun in a locked car Dec. 28. Riverside County Dist. Atty.

A gun manufacturer is partly to blame for the police shooting of a black motorist because it sold the weapon she had on her lap when she was killed, the city claimed in a lawsuit. Lorcin Engineering Co. negligently marketed and distributed the .380-caliber gun Tyisha Miller had when she was found unresponsive in her car Dec. 28, 1998, according to the lawsuit filed Thursday. Lorcin failed to educate or train users regarding the safe and correct way to use guns, the lawsuit said.

National civil rights activists joined about 1,000 people Monday in a mostly peaceful rally protesting the decision by county prosecutors not to file criminal charges against four police officers who shot and killed Tyisha Miller in December. Riverside police said 46 people, including activists Dick Gregory, the Rev. Al Sharpton and Martin Luther King III, were arrested in a carefully orchestrated demonstration that blocked the entrance to police headquarters.

Almost two years after four white Riverside police officers shot and killed a black woman passed out in a car, the city has finalized a $3-million legal settlement with the woman's survivors, family representatives and attorneys involved in the case said Wednesday. Tyisha Miller's family will receive $500,000 immediately and is planning to accept the rest in installments over the next 15 years, said the Rev. Bernell Butler, Miller's cousin and a family spokesman.

Attorneys representing survivors of Tyisha Miller, a black woman killed by white police officers in Riverside, have reached a tentative multimillion-dollar settlement with the city, according to lawyers and court documents filed Wednesday. The documents say an agreement has been reached but do not specify how much the city would pay. But a source close to the case, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the city has agreed to pay $3 million.

The black woman was passed out in a Nissan Sentra, radio blasting, doors locked, a pistol on her lap. When four white police officers tried to wake her, they saw a sudden movement. "It scared the hell out of me," one officer recalled later. They fired 24 times at Tyisha Miller. Twelve bullets found their mark.

Attorneys defending the city of Riverside from a lawsuit charging that racism led police officers to shoot and kill a black woman have been thrown off the case by a federal judge. U.S. District Judge Robert J. Timlin ruled Tuesday that the lawyers have a conflict of interest in the Tyisha Miller lawsuit because they once represented police officers accused in Miller's December 1998 death. The timing of the judge's decision could be awkward, according to those close to the case.

Lack of training and unfair discipline practices have left police officers demoralized and unwilling to prevent crime, a grand jury reported after the Tyisha Miller shooting. The report, released Monday after a seven-month investigation, said the grand jury found no evidence of rampant racism within the Riverside Police Department and, if anything, found the department suffers from unfair discipline practices that favor minorities.

Newly released toxicology findings indicate that Tyisha Miller was under the influence of GHB, an illegal drug that can induce semiconsciousness and vomiting--the type of symptoms she was said to be exhibiting before she was shot and killed by four Riverside police officers in December 1998. Miller, 19, was slain by officers who said they found her unresponsive in her parked vehicle with a gun in her lap.

Critics of the Riverside police shooting of Tyisha Miller conducted another of their weekly protest marches Monday, attracting about 75 demonstrators but this time not prompting any arrests for civil disobedience. One speaker, NAACP Western Regional Director Frank Berry, admonished the group to demonstrate its anger by registering to vote. He contended that Riverside County Dist. Atty.

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.

A gun manufacturer is partly to blame for the police shooting of a black motorist because it sold the weapon she had on her lap when she was killed, the city claimed in a lawsuit. Lorcin Engineering Co. negligently marketed and distributed the .380-caliber gun Tyisha Miller had when she was found unresponsive in her car Dec. 28, 1998, according to the lawsuit filed Thursday. Lorcin failed to educate or train users regarding the safe and correct way to use guns, the lawsuit said.

For months, weekly rallies and marches were staged in downtown Riverside protesting the death of Tyisha Miller. The 19-year-old black woman was killed by four white Riverside police officers on Dec. 28, 1998. Responding to a call for medical aid, the officers found her unresponsive in her parked, locked car. They said they shot her after they broke a car window and she reached for a gun that rested on her lap.