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WALNUT CREEK — The family of a man shot to death by Walnut Creek police earlier this month has filed civil claim against the police department, alleging that officers violated the man’s civil rights by not using proper deescalation tactics in their encounter with a person they knew suffered from mental illness.
The claim — filed Friday by Bay Area civil rights attorney John Burris — states that the death of Miles Hall was preventable, and that the Walnut Creek Police Department knew the 23-year-old had a mental illness when they responded to 911 calls from Hall’s family members. Hall died after being shot by two of the five officers responding to the incident on Sandra Court and Arlene Lane on June 2.
“Tragically, Miles Hall’s family did everything they could to protect their mentally challenged son by using all available public services including the police,” Burris said in a statement. “Yet he was shot dead by the same police they thought would protect him.”
Officers, he added at a press conference Friday, did “exactly what you’re not supposed to do.”
On the day before Miles Hall’s death, his mother, Taun Hall, called the Walnut Creek Police Department to inform them that her son’s mental health issues had worsened.
“I actually called them and was giving them a head’s up: ‘Hey, he’s having an episode. You guys might want to be aware of what’s happening,'” Taun Hall said at a press conference announcing the civil claim Friday.
Miles Hall had previously been diagnosed as having schizoaffective disorder, which can cause delusions, hallucinations and disorganized speech, according to the family’s civil claim.
The family’s claim alleges that despite knowing Miles Hall suffered from mental illness, the Walnut Creek police officers failed to take steps to diffuse the situation after police responding to 911 calls June 2 that reported the young man was in a state of extreme agitation, and making threats against his mother and grandmother.
The department has identified the five officers who responded to the incident as: Officer Tammy Keagy, Sgt. Holley Connors, Officer KC Hsiao, Officer Matt Smith, and Officer Melissa Murphy. All five officers have been placed on administrative leave while the department and the Contra Costa County District Attorney’s office review the incident.
Police have not identified the two officers who fired their guns.
“In the coming weeks, we intend to release additional information, including audio of 911 calls and video from officers’ body-worn cameras and surveillance camera footage,” Walnut Creek Police Chief Thomas Chaplin said in a statement Friday. “We continue to reach out to Miles’ family to offer them an opportunity to view privately the videos prior to any public release.”
Taun Hall said the family had previously worked with Keagy — a 17-year veteran of the police department who was on its Mental Health Evaluation Team —on strategies for dealing with Miles Hall’s mental illness.
“I had a relationship with the Walnut Creek Police Department that I felt safe with,” Taun Hall said Friday. “They had become my partners in 2018, ones I was able to rely on to help and to guide me. I felt very safe with them. I felt they really wanted to help.”
Miles Hall was taken into custody on a psychiatric hold in July 2018, according to police records. In other previous incidents, Hall was known to run home after being spotted in the neighborhood, Burris said.
Keagy was aware of those incidents, he said.
Miles Hall’s struggles were well known to the family’s neighbors. The family lives at the end of a cul-de-sac off a private lane in a leafy neighborhood of spacious older ranch homes near downtown Walnut Creek, in a cluster of homes that Taun Hall described as tight-knit.
She said she would alert those neighbors when her son began showing symptoms.
“When Miles was having an episode in 2018, I let them know, ‘Hey, be aware, we have some bizarre behavior,'” she said. “It was mostly to keep people on alert. Also, he’s an African-American male in a white community, but he grew up here. The people think of us like family. It was more to keep neighbors on the alert, and if they felt like they needed to call people, they have the option.”
In the months prior to his death, her son had showed signs of improvement, Taun Hall said. But he had recently stopped taking his medication, and was beginning to experience symptoms again.
“He thought he didn’t have a problem,” she said. “That’s part of the problem with mental illness is that ]the person] doesn’t understand [he’s] ill.”
On the afternoon of June 2 — the day after Taun Hall said she called the police department to alert them to Miles’ situation — officers responded to the family’s Sandra Court home after 911 calls reported he was threatening his grandmother. Additional calls came in about five minutes later reporting that was threatening his mother with an object police described as a crowbar. The family has said was a pole he believed had been given to him by God.
“It is true that Miles was in an episode, and it is true that he was delusional,” Burris said Friday. “Obviously, he was not thinking clearly.”
The responding officers found Hall carrying that object when they located him on Arlene Lane shortly after arriving. Police said that the officers first tried to stop Hall by shooting non-lethal bean bags at him when he refused to put down the weapon. Hall then charged at the officers, police said, leading two of them to fire lethal shots.
Chaplin, the police chief, has called the fatal shooting “unfortunate” and a “tragedy, no matter how you slice it.” He has also defended his officers’ experience dealing with mentally ill people in crisis, as well as their decision not to use a Taser after the non-lethal bean bags failed to subdue him.
“When you see the video, that answer of why they didn’t use a Taser will become clear. This was much more than a crowbar. This was an iron bar with a sharp end,” he told this paper last week. “We take 45,000 calls annually, and we deescalate situations every day. We talk people who are in mental distress down and deescalate potentially volatile situations every day. What’s sad about this situation is that the opportunity to deescalate really didn’t present itself.”
Burris and the Hall family disagree. Burris said four police officers lined up side-by-side with their guns drawn, and yelled orders, causing Hall to become more frightened than he already was.
“From my point of view, the police engaged in a sort military-style skirmish type approach here,” Burris said Friday, adding that officers had responded by lining up side by side with their guns drawn, and yelled orders at Miles Hall, causing him to become more agitated.
“They did exactly what you’re not supposed to do. They, one, had their weapons drawn, and, two, they were yelling and screaming and shouting orders at a person who was delusional,” he said. “They did not create the time and distance that is required when you’re dealing with a person who is not operating in a sane way.”
“There was no effort to say, ‘We’re here to help you, we’re here to calm this down. Is there anything we can do for you?’” Burris added. “No, it was ‘Stop, stop, stop, stop.’ It was ‘bang, bang, bang, bang.’”
