Activists Say Civil Disobedience Will Be Used to Protest Riverside Shooting

Angry at this week’s decision by county prosecutors not to criminally charge the four Riverside police officers who shot and killed teenager Tyisha Miller, activists from Los Angeles announced plans Friday to stage a rally here on Monday, saying they will engage in nonviolent civil disobedience.

“We’re telling people not to join us on our buses if they don’t plan on going to jail with us,” said Najee Ali, director of Project Islamic Hope, which is participating in the protest with the Congress of Racial Equality.

“Civil disobedience is the watchword,” said Sandra Moore, vice chairwoman of CORE in Los Angeles. “We’re mad as hell, and we’re not going to take this anymore.”

Since the Dec. 28 shooting by police who had found Miller passed out in a locked car with a gun in her lap, Riverside activists have mounted a series of peaceful rallies to protest the killing. No protesters have been arrested. Four Riverside police officers, none of them black, said they fired at the black woman when she reached for her handgun after they broke out the window of her car. On Thursday, Riverside County Dist. Atty. Grover Trask announced that the officers’ actions did not rise to the level of criminal negligence needed to file charges, but he did criticize the officers for acting hastily.

Trask said he found no evidence that the shooting was racially motivated, but added that he has asked the state attorney general’s office and the U.S. Justice Department to investigate reports that, shortly after the shooting, other Riverside police officers uttered racial slurs.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Mike Soccio said Friday that a police officer at the scene reported that another officer “said something to the effect, ‘It looks like a Kwanzaa gathering over there,’ ” referring to the African American cultural holiday.

Another officer, Soccio said, remarked after the arrival of a grieving woman, “Get ready, here comes the Watts death wail.”

Additionally, other officers reported that the four officers involved in the shooting slapped their hands together and hugged afterward, but did not reach as high as the “high five” popular among athletes, Soccio said.

“The interpretation by other officers at the scene was that they were doing this out of relief, not congratulations,” Soccio said. “Another officer said it looked to him like something he’d seen in Vietnam, when you made it through a shooting.”

Soccio also said that 10 days ago, his office was told by one of Miller’s cousins--who witnessed the shooting from a distance--that after Miller was shot, one officer allegedly yelled, “Get your black a-- out of the car, or we’ll sic the dog on you.”

Soccio said the witness had not previously told investigators of that remark--and that the cousin came forward with it only after she had filed a civil lawsuit against the city for emotional distress.

The FBI is also probing possible civil rights violations in connection with the shooting, and a spokeswoman said Friday that it was unclear when the investigation would be completed.

A committee of Riverside clergy and members of Miller’s family had previously planned a rally Monday to pressure Trask’s office to prosecute the four officers. But when Trask released his long-awaited report Thursday, it changed the thrust of Monday’s planned activities.

Until now, Riverside clergy have not publicly promoted civil disobedience as a way of protesting Miller’s shooting, but some within their ranks have been quietly suggesting it.

In Los Angeles, Ali said protesters would block the doors to Riverside City Hall and the nearby district attorney’s office.

Ali and Moore said the protests would echo rallies in New York City, where hundreds of people have been arrested while protesting the slaying of Amadou Diallo, an unarmed immigrant who was shot by New York police officers.

Among those who were arrested was firebrand minister Al Sharpton, who is expected to appear at the Riverside rally Monday along with activist Dick Gregory and Martin Luther King III, Ali and Moore said. Sharpton is also expected to speak at several church services in Riverside on Sunday.

Riverside police say they will be on full tactical alert during Monday’s protest.

Previous Riverside rallies have included a march led by the Rev. Jesse Jackson, which attracted about 1,000 participants.

Other events have attracted far fewer people.

When an advisory committee held a public forum several weeks ago to hear any complaints about excessive use of force by Riverside police, only about two dozen people attended, and only two or three spoke specifically of allegedly having been abused by Riverside officers.