Seeking accountability

Myra Micalizio was a troubled woman. For at least the past five years, according to family, she’d suffered from mental illness. She maintained a close relationship with her children, two daughters and a son, but often talked with her “air friends”—people who were not actually there.

On April 26, 2018, she came upon a pile of kitchen items in a mobile home park near where she lived in Palermo. She thought it was part of a yard sale, though it turns out it wasn’t, and began rummaging. When the residents confronted Micalizio, she asked if they were having a yard sale. “No,” they said, before asking her to leave their property. She then offered to buy the whole pile, given they could make change for the trillion-dollar bill she had.

Those are all details gathered by Micalizio’s family and their lawyer, Mark Merin, because Micalizio isn’t alive to rehash the events of that day. When Butte County Sheriff’s Office deputies arrived on the scene, responding to a call from the neighbors, they told her to raise her hands in the air because the 911 caller had said she’d threatened to shoot people, according to a press release. When she failed to comply and instead got into her vehicle and allegedly sped toward them in reverse, they opened fire. She died on-site.

“It was one of those shoot first, ask questions later things,” Merin, a civil rights attorney in Sacramento, charged by phone. “It’s another outrageous instance of Butte County sheriff’s [deputies] killing civilians.”

Last Friday (July 20), Merin filed a federal civil rights claim against the BCSO and the deputies involved in the shooting—Charles Lair and Mary Barker—on behalf of Micalizio’s three children. A complaint filed against the agency last month was denied, Merin said. The suit alleges that Micalizio had a mental illness that was not recognized by the deputies, though they should be trained to notice such things and handle them differently.

The immediate goal is to get hold of documents—the coroner’s report, investigative reports, ballistic evidence, etc.—that have to this point been withheld, he said. The Butte County Officer Involved Shooting and Critical Incident Protocol Team opened an investigation immediately following the incident; however, it has yet to produce its report, according to District Attorney Mike Ramsey. There is no timeline on when it will be finished.

Merin sees this as a common delay tactic employed in many jurisdictions. He is currently working about a dozen cases of officer-involved shootings.

“They want to make sure that, to the extent that they can, they delay the family of the person who was shot from instigating action,” he said. “There’s a six-month claim term to preserve your right to proceed in court. [They hope the family will] forget or not know—and they end up getting screwed.”

The Micalizio lawsuit comes amid a handful of others aimed at local law enforcement. The parents of Tyler Rushing, who was shot and killed in Chico by a security guard and police officers, were in town Monday (July 23) to observe the one-year anniversary of their son’s death. Scott Rushing said it’s been a tough year for his family, which is in the process of suing the city of Chico as well as the officer and security guard involved in Tyler’s killing.

Then there’s Desmond Phillips, the young man who, like Micalizio, suffered from mental illness. He was shot and killed by Chico Police officers on St. Patrick’s Day 2017. His father, David, also is suing.

And many people may remember the story of Breanne Sharpe, the 19-year-old who was shot and killed inside her car by Chico Police officers following a high-speed chase. Her mother, Mindy Losee, filed a lawsuit against the city and officers involved. Just last month, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a decision to dismiss it.

The appeals court upheld the dismissal regarding four of the involved officers, but said that the district court had erred when dismissing the excessive force claim against Sgt. Scott Zuschin. “The right not to be shot in a car that poses no immediate danger to police officers or others is clearly established,” the court decision reads.

And Micalizio hasn’t been the only Butte County resident killed by law enforcement this year. Just this week (July 25), Ramsey released the report of the Officer Involved Shooting and Critical Incident Protocol Team regarding the April 7 shooting death of Larry Siordia. He was shot in the chest by Butte County Sheriff’s Sgt. Mathew Rackley after opening fire on officers, according to the report. He’d held his wife and children hostage and officers responded to calls from the wife’s sister, who’d been in contact via text message.

As for Micalizio’s children, attorney Merin says they ultimately want the deputies involved to be held accountable for their actions. They should be trained to not only recognize mental illness but also how to handle people experiencing an episode. He believes Micalizio posed no threat and is hoping the documents, once obtained from the county, will show as much.

“She was a middle-aged woman, a Jehovah’s Witness, friendly, employed, but kooky,” he said. “She was suffering from some kind of mental illness. She had imaginary friends, she’d hallucinate. They were all around her. It was something she lived with. It was strange, but that’s how it went.”