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UID:Indybay-18834250
SEQUENCE:18988725
CREATED:20200616T010700Z
DESCRIPTION:Walnut Creek City Council to Review Its Response to Community Organization 
 Requests for City and Police Department Policy, Protocol Change; City 
 Council to Review Its Response to Black Lives Matter Protestors.\n\nJune 
 16, 2020, 6:00 p.m.:  The Walnut Creek City Council will hear a pivotal and 
 seminal report from City Manager Dan Buckshi and staff at its June 16 City 
 Council meeting. Go here to view the meeting.\n\nDuring that report, Mr. 
 Buckshi will share his assessment of the City’s progress, to date, on 
 requested City and Police Department policy and protocol improvements. 
 Levied and pursued by grassroots community group Friends of Scott, Alexis 
 and Taun Hall (FOSATH) between July 2019 and June 2020, these requests 
 focus on the need for systemic changes surrounding police use of force, 
 mental health crisis response, and anti-bias education.  FOSATH has also 
 asked that the City of Walnut Creek and Contra Costa County District 
 Attorney’s Office request and obtain an independent investigation of the 
 June 2019 police shooting and killing of Walnut Creek citizen Miles Hall. 
 Finally, FOSATH has requested that the officers who shot Miles Hall be 
 placed on administrative leave or on desk duty, while the Contra Costa 
 County District Attorney’s Office reviews the incident that resulted in 
 Miles Hall’s death.\n\nIn addition to presenting on the aforementioned 
 items, Mr. Buckshi will report on the City of Walnut Creek’s response to 
 Black Lives Matter protestors on June 1, 2020. Multiple community -based 
 organizations decried the City’s militaristic and violent handling of 
 many of the protesters in a June 12th letter addressed to Mayor Haskew, 
 Police Chief Chaplin, Mr. Buckshi, the City Council and others, calling the 
 City’s response, replete with tear gas, rubber bullets, military 
 vehicles, and guard dogs, “escalatory” and disproportionately 
 aggressive. Signatories to that letter follow: National Alliance on Mental 
 Illness (NAMI), Together We Stand, Together We Will, Contra Costa, Showing 
 Up for Racial Justice (SURJ), Diablo Valley Cemocartic Club, Indivisible 
 Central Contra Costa County, Indivisible ReSisters Walnut Creek and Friends 
 of Scott, Alexis and Taun Hall (FOSATH). \n\n\nBackground:\n\nOn a Sunday 
 afternoon on June 2nd, 2019, on a bucolic, tree-lined street in Walnut 
 Creek, 23-year-oldWalnut Creek citizen Miles Hall lost his life to police 
 gunfire.   Miles was in the throes of a schizoaffective episode that day. 
 Both Miles’ mother Taun Hall and his grandmother reached out to the 
 police for assistance navigating the situation, as the police department 
 had encouraged them to do in the past. The responding Walnut Creek Police 
 Department officers grossly violated their trust.  Five police officers 
 arrived at the scene and repeatedly yelled “stop” at Miles. When Miles 
 attempted to run past them, two officers fired their guns at him, killing 
 him. \n\nMiles Hall’s status as a young man suffering from mental illness 
 spurred community members to ask why he was shot while in a state of mental 
 despair. At the same time, his status as a young black man killed by police 
 fire in an elite city in which there had been no officer-involved shootings 
 in 7 years caused community concern about equity. \n\nIn the ensuing year, 
 Miles’ mother Taun Hall has turned her pain into power, starting the 
 Miles Hall Foundation (501 c3 pending) with her husband, Scott. The Miles 
 Hall Foundation aims to “support and protect families by educating 
 communities about mental illness and by protecting those suffering with 
 mental illness from excessive use of force by law enforcement.” Goals 
 include improving Crisis Intervention Training (CIT) for police officers 
 and enhancing community access to non-police and non-violent mental health 
 interventions. \n\nInitiatives of the Miles Hall Foundation are supported 
 by NAMI of Contra Costa County and grassroots community group Friends of 
 Scott, Alexis and Taun Hall (FOSATH). \n 
 https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2020/06/15/18834250.php
SUMMARY:Justice for Miles Hall: Walnut Creek city council report on policing
LOCATION:Watch online and comment remotely: 
 https://walnutcreek.granicus.com/GeneratedAgendaViewer.php?view_id=12&event_id=1894
URL:https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2020/06/15/18834250.php
DTSTART:20200617T010000Z
DTEND:20200617T030000Z
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