SHOOTING VICTIM'S BACKERS CALL TOXICOLOGY IRRELEVANT

Police: They say her blood-alcohol level has no bearing on her death at the
hands of Riverside officers.

Riverside-Relatives and activists questioned the significance Friday of a
blood test showing that a woman shot to death by police as she sat in her
car had been drinking and possibly smoking marijuana.

Tyisha Miller, 19, was killed Dec. 28 by four police officers in a shooting
that has angered blacks and others in Riverside and beyond. The officers
have been placed on administrative leave during an internal investigation.

"All this proves is that she was a 19-year-old out having fun with
friends," said the Rev. Bernell Butler, a cousin of Miller's. "Why don't
they release the officers' toxicology reports or their names or the tapes
of the 911 call?"

A funeral was scheduled for 11 a.m. today at the New Joy Bapist Church in
Riverside, following a wake Friday night for Miller at Leimert Park in Los
Angeles.

Miller was shot a dozen times by officers who responded to an emergency
call from friends, who had found her unconscious in her white Nissan Sentra
with a flat tire. The windows were rolled up and the doors were locked.

Initially, police said she fired at them with a handgun. Later they changed
their story and said Miller had grabbed at a gun in her lap after an
officer broke a window to help her.

Authorities released a Riverside County coroner's report Thursday showing
Miller had a blood alcohol level of 0.13 percent. In California, the legal
blood alcohol limit for driving is 0.08 percent. Traces of marijuana and
cannbinoids, a marijuana byproduct, were also in her system when she died,
the report said.

"I don't care what her alcohol level was," said the Rev. Danny Bakewell of
the Brotherhood Crusade in Los Angeles. "I don't care if she had a machine
gun in the car. This is murder in our midst."

Miller lived in nearby Rubidoux, where about 300 people attended a church
rally Thursday night to protest the shooting. ''Police have released few
details of their internal investigation.

The FBI is conducting a preliminary investigation into whether Miller's
civil rights may have been violated, and her family has asked that an
outside agency oversee the police investigation.

Relatives arranged for a second autopsy to be conducted Thursday by Dr.
Michael Baden, New York City's former chief medical examiner. Results from
that autopsy were not expected for several weeks.