Long Beach Police to Release Findings on Shooting of Mentally Ill Woman

The Long Beach Police Department will release for the first time findings from investigations into the Jan. 19 officer shooting death of Marcella Byrd, a schizophrenic black woman.

Police Chief Jerome Lance will discuss the separate findings of the department’s internal investigation and those of the Los Angeles County coroner and district attorney.

The public can question the chief at what is the monthly general membership meeting of the Long Beach chapter of the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People. The meeting is Sunday at 3:15 p.m. at Cal Rec Center, 1515 Martin Luther King Blvd., Long Beach.

Naomi Rainey, president of the chapter, said an NAACP-led coalition formed after Byrd’s shooting that has examined police “use of force and use of force training” will announce its recommendations for department reform.

The officers’ killing of Byrd during the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend generated a broad-based outcry in the community and inspired a protest by a civil rights group called Peace Action Network.

The shooting, which ended a four-minute standoff with police near downtown after Byrd refused to drop the knife, also triggered a record number of complaints to the NAACP chapter, whose board members condemned the shooting and demanded a meeting with the chief.

Community concern was mounting and protests were held before Lance and his top managers met at a February NAACP forum.

Lance chose to present his department’s findings first to the chapter membership because it had generated questions he could not then answer, a department spokesman said Friday.

After he defended his officers’ actions long before the investigation’s outcome, Lance irked some of the February forum’s 100 attendees.

Nonetheless, he was credited for making the effort to meet with concerned citizens.