On June 2, 2019, Miles Hall, a 23 year-old citizen of Walnut Creek, CA, was shot and killed in his own neighborhood by officers of the Walnut Creek Police Department. Miles was a graduate of Las Lomas High School and a great friend to many. He struggled with his mental health and his family wanted to get him help, not put his life in danger. Family members told police dispatch that he suffered from bipolar disorder, so officers should have been prepared to enter the situation with additional vigilance for the safety of all involved. Instead of attempting to de-escalate the situation, Walnut Creek Police officers shot at him with non-lethal rounds, ultimately heightening intensity and increasing fear for both Miles and the officers involved. After negative results, Walnut Creek Police officers chose to take deadly action and fire their weapons with malice aforethought, striking and killing Miles Hall.

While we acknowledge that the Walnut Creek Police Department and the Contra Costa District Attorney’s Office are actively conducting independent investigations, we strongly believe that this situation could have been prevented had each of the officers been through advanced Crisis Intervention Training. As of 2018, there was one, two-person Mental Health Evaluation team for the entirety of central Contra Costa County. This is in no way sufficient enough to assist even a fraction of mental health patients in our city, let alone the county. We request that the Walnut Creek Police Department joins forces with local healthcare officials and mental health clinicians to create a more efficient process for assisting those in need. We also request that the Walnut Creek Police Department retrain it’s officers in use-of-force scenarios. We hold good faith that additional training and mental health resources will benefit both the citizens and police officers of Walnut Creek.

We, the undersigned, are concerned citizens who urge the Walnut Creek Police Department to thoroughly amend their protocol regarding critical incident calls involving mentally-ill subjects. We are calling on the Walnut Creek Police Department and the City of Walnut Creek to provide every officer with Crisis Intervention Training and re-evaluate the department’s current use-of-force training. We also request the development of additional Mental Health Evaluation teams to prevent any further similarly tragic situations while also providing Mental Health Resources in the City of Walnut Creek for its citizens and officers equally. We plead for the transparency from the City of Walnut Creek, Walnut Creek Police Department, and Contra Costa District Attorney’s Office. With this petition, we feel it is imperative that the City of Walnut Creek and the Walnut Creek Police Department work together to establish and administer new policies that will assist officers in understanding, supporting, and thus helping to prevent another killing of a Walnut Creek citizen such as Miles Hall.