Miles Hall Rally In Walnut Creek Wednesday

WALNUT CREEK, CA — A rally for Miles Hall, a 23-year-old Black man who was shot and killed in June 2019 by Walnut Creek police, will be held Wednesday starting at 6:30 p.m. at Civic Park in downtown Walnut Creek.

The rally is the most recent of an ongoing series of events bringing attention not only to the life of Hall, but also to the response of police, and society in general, to people battling mental illness.

"We have to keep fighting the good fight, as they say," said Julie Yip of Walnut Creek, a volunteer with the Justice for Miles Hall coalition, which is organizing the event. The coalition supports reallocating some police funding to social services, including mental health response services, she said. "We'd like to make Miles's name as recognizable for that cause as are George Floyd or Breonna Taylor, to make that his legacy," said Yip, citing two well-known victims infamously killed by police.

Walnut Creek police were called on June 2, 2019, to the Hall family's home in a quiet neighborhood south of downtown. Family members told the responding officers Miles was having a mental health-related episode. Miles Hall had a steel rod in his hands, variously described as a garden tool and a crowbar, and wouldn't respond to police commands to drop it.

Officers fired beanbag rounds at him, to little effect. Two officers then fired their service weapons at Hall, and he died later that day from those wounds. Hall's family, including his parents Scott and Taun Hall, sued the city in September 2019, alleging police didn't have to use lethal force, especially knowing Miles suffered from mental illness, and didn't properly de-escalate the situation.

The family is being represented by civil rights attorney John Burris. The city of Walnut Creek, meanwhile, is awaiting completion of a report by the Contra Costa County District Attorney's Office on the Miles Hall shooting. Burris is scheduled to speak Wednesday.

Other invited but unconfirmed speakers include actors Jamie Foxx and Danny Glover, Oakland rapper/film director Boots Riley and his father, civil rights attorney Walter Riley. The latter recently filed a federal class action lawsuit against the city of Oakland to ban police use of tear gas, rubber bullets, flashbang grenades and other "non-lethal" weapons against protesters.

Also speaking will be Taun Hall, Miles's mother. She said Monday that, "The Riley suit is similar to how the police responded in Walnut Creek to their protesters - with tear gas." The common thread between the Hall's lawsuit and Riley's against Oakland, she said, is police brutality. Members of a group called the Friends of Scott, Alexis and Taun Hall — including members of the Hall family — have spoken at virtually every Walnut Creek City Council meeting since Miles's death.

They have talked about their son, and the need for police reforms and for improving mental health services for more effective responses to episodes that claimed Miles Hall's life. On June 2, to mark the one-year anniversary of Hall's death, friends, family and supporters of the Hall family presented a 90-minute-long online Zoom "webinar" program to honor Miles. Among those who appeared on that program were Burris; Cephus X Johnson, the uncle of Oscar Grant III, a black man killed by a BART police officer at the Fruitvale station in Oakland on Jan. 1, 2009; and Dave Clark, a morning news anchor for KTVU-TV in Oakland. That video presentation will be shown on big screens at Wednesday's rally, Taun Hall said.

Wednesday's rally is being organized by the Justice For Miles Hall coalition. Those attending must wear face masks, which will be given out, and social distancing is strongly encouraged.

Copyright 2020 by Bay City News, Inc. —Republication, Rebroadcast or any other Reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited.