Covelo, CA - A series of three fatal shootings in one day left two Native American men and a deputy sheriff dead, resulting in an intensive police manhunt for the alleged cop killer, while residents of the Round Valley Indian Reservation raised charges of a police cover-up and civil rights violations. A $100,000 reward and filming for Fox TV's America's Most Wanted were announced today. The reservation is located in northeast Mendocino County, about 160 miles north of San Francisco.
Eugene Britton, 48, was shot to death about 6 pm April 14 in the Covelo High School parking lot. The Mendocino County Sheriff's Department said witnesses named Arylis Peters as the gunman in that shooting. Two others who may have been with Peters were quickly arrested, and Peters himself was arrested early the next morning.
However, three hours after that first shooting, while searching after dark on a remote road for Arylis Peters, two sheriff's deputies shot and killed Leonard Peters, 44, his brother. The brothers bore little physical resemblance to each other except that they were both Indian men. Deputy Dennis Miller said he and Deputy Bob Davis shot Peters after he allegedly refused orders to put down a gun and began shooting at them. Peters' widow, however, says he was night blind as a result of diabetes, so there was no way for him to be threatening officers with a gun in the dark. She believes he was unarmed.
Moments after Peters was shot, according to Deputy Miller, shots were fired by an unseen assailant from nearby bushes, and Deputy Davis, 49, died in the ensuing shoot-out. A massive manhunt was launched that night for the unknown assailant of Davis. Over 24 hours later investigators announced they suspected Eugene "Bear" Lincoln, 51, whose home is nearby. Nobody saw Lincoln at the shooting scene, but officers said they found his hat nearby.
Police Cover-Up Charged
Family members believe Leonard Peters was ambushed in the dark by the deputies when they mistook him for his brother Arylis, and they believe that law enforcement is engaging in a cover-up of their mistake. Residents near the scene heard several bursts of automatic weapons (machine gun) fire, and some think that the slain deputy was hit by his partner's bullets in a crossfire. Relatives said that Peters' body was riddled with bullet holes.
Cyndi Pickett, his widow, said when she dressed him for his funeral, there were at least a dozen holes in the back of his head large enough to put her finger into, probably from buckshot fired from a deputy's shotgun. She described her husband as a very gentle man who loved flowers and stayed home to care for the youngest of his six children while she worked as a teacher's aide.
Although the family has not been allowed to see the autopsy report over a month after the killings, a sheriff's spokesperson said Leonard Peters was hit only by a single bullet in the face. However, a sheriff's spokesperson earlier had told the press that Peters was shot down in "a hail of bullets." A witness who saw Peters' body about 15 minutes after the shooting, said that, "His whole torso was just pulverized, he was so shot up."
Leonard Peters' family has filed a wrongful death claim against Mendocino County, maintaining that deputies shot an innocent man during their search for Arylis Peters. Their attorney, Sacramento lawyer Carlos Alcala, said he would file a wrongful death lawsuit as soon as the county denies the claim. Alcala obtained a court order May 8 requiring investigators to preserve all evidence in the case, including notes, diagrams, photos and tape recordings.
Many Round Valley residents feel that Bear Lincoln, if he really was at the shooting scene, may be the only witness besides Deputy Miller to what happened that night. They believe that Lincoln is running for his life. Residents monitoring police scanners said they heard a "shoot to kill" order against Lincoln.
Noted San Francisco Bay Area attorney J. Tony Serra has agreed to defend Lincoln if he is brought to trial. There have been unsuccessful efforts to negotiate a safe surrender and protective custody for Lincoln.
More than a month after the shootings, Lincoln remains free, and a sheriff's spokesperson has said they suspect family members or other reservation residents are hiding him, adding, "We're going to be a thorn in their side until they cough him up." Today a $100,000 reward in the case was announced in a press release from the office of California Governor Pete Wilson, who also plans to be a Republican candidate for president.
Residents Claim Harassment And Illegal Searches By Police
Meanwhile, some reservation residents issued a statement soon after the shootings, saying they had been "living in a state of terror given the severe and illegal harassment suffered at the hands of the Mendocino County police." The statement listed a dozen incidents of elders and children having guns pointed at them and suffering physical and verbal abuse while "at least 50 homes have been searched, many without warrants."
Dozens of heavily armed law enforcement officers poured into Round Valley in the days after the shootings to join in the manhunt for the alleged cop killer. Some carried fully automatic M-16 military assault rifles or shotguns. They included a helicopter-supported Sonoma County SWAT team, FBI agents, California Highway Patrol, and officers from nearby counties, cities and state agencies.
"Innocent people are being caught up in a police dragnet," said Ron Lincoln, a tribal council member. "They've roughed up our elders and put guns to our children's heads." Some residents said they were stopped and searched nearly every time they tried to drive anywhere. According to a Sheriff's spokesperson, the officers are staying within the letter of the law, but others have admitted they are using every pretext for conducting searches. A deputy at the scene of one daytime search with drawn weapons in the presence of children, when asked if the guns were necessary stated that, "We're here to make a point."
Representatives from Round Valley went to the Mendocino County Board of Supervisors seeking relief from law enforcement harassment. They asked for support for a request for federal intervention by the Bureau of Indian Affairs to protect their civil rights, and asked the county board to send a message to the sheriff to order his officers to abide by all state and federal laws in their treatment of the Native American community. The board unanimously agreed to support those requests.
Round Valley Community Support Coalition Formed
At a Covelo meeting May 5 for reservation residents, supporters, and media, several people told of the harassment they had personally suffered or witnessed, and said intimidation by police was continuing. As a result of that meeting the Round Valley Community Support Coalition was formed. The Coalition's stated purpose is to be a link between the Round Valley community and other groups, to work towards developing peaceful and constructive solutions, and to support the community in their quest for justice. The coalition is talking with a veteran San Francisco civil rights attorney about filing a civil-rights lawsuit.
The family of Leonard Peters is asking for contributions for an investigation, and for a letter writing campaign to the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice urging an investigation of the killing of Leonard Peters, protection for the Round Valley Reservation residents from further police harassment, and for "the prevention of the murder of yet another Indian man who must be presumed innocent until proven guilty according to the laws of our country."
(Update As Of May 19th)
Cover-Up Charge, Manhunt Continues
More than a month after he was shot to death on the Round Valley Indian Reservation by Mendocino County Sheriffs Deputies Dennis Miller and Bob Davis, no one from the family of Leonard "Acorn" Peters, or their lawyer, has had access to the autopsy report. They have been told it is secret information due to an ongoing investigation. Witnesses who came on the shooting scene within minutes say they saw no gun near the body of Peters.
Deputy Miller's statement told how, at one point, he took cover to the left of the road down the embankment while armed with a fully-automatic M-16. People at the scene a few days after the shootings said the position of Deputy Davis' body as clearly indicated by blood stains on the cut bank to the right of the road was 15 feet further down the road than Leonard Peter's body, NOT consistent with his being shot in the head from ambush while bending over Peters. Anderson Valley Advertiser reporter Mark Heimann, who studied the shooting scene, believes that Deputy Davis was hiding in the brush to the right of the road, just uphill from where his body ended up. He was carrying a shotgun. The position of Davis' and Peters' bodies were along a line which included a spot on the embankment just across from where the squad car was parked, a likely position of Deputy Miller while he was armed with and firing a fully automatic weapon. Peters' body was in the middle, between the two deputies.
Possible Scenario
This is consistent with the following scenario. The two deputies were waiting in the moonlit darkness, deployed in ambush, one on each side of the road, expecting to confront an armed and dangerous murder suspect. Leonard Peters, who was night blind, came walking up the road, probably carrying a walking stick since he couldn't see after dark. The deputies saw him in silhouette (according to Miller's statement), mistook Leonard Peters for his brother Arylis (the murder suspect), mistook the walking stick for a gun, and opened fire. Davis fired with his buckshot-loaded shotgun, hitting Peters in the back of the head, and Miller fired with the M-16 in fully automatic mode (many witnesses heard multiple bursts of fully automatic fire) hitting Peters from the front with multiple bullets to the torso, and one to the face. One of the bullets from the M-16 struck Davis in the head, killing him, and he tumbled from his position in the brush above the road to the spot where his body was found.
No one saw Bear Lincoln, the official suspect in the killing of Deputy Davis, at the scene of the shooting. The sheriff says investigators found Bear's hat and a trail of blood leading to a group of houses where his family lives. The sheriff believes the suspect was wounded. If Bear is in hiding, it doesn't mean he is guilty. The life experience of Native Americans in Round Valley doesn't lead them to expect justice or fair treatment at the hands of the Sheriff's department or the courts. Their experience is far different from that of the white Willits businessman who spoke to the county supervisors May 2, saying he never had any trouble with the police, and, "if you ain't got nothing to hide, you ain't got nothing to fear."
Bear Lincoln probably expects he would be shot on sight by Mendocino County Sheriff's deputies, especially if there were no witnesses around. As many Native Americans are saying now, if you're an Indian in Round Valley, you're guilty until proven innocent.
Independent Investigation Needed
A truly independent investigation is needed. Sonoma County Sheriff's Detective Roy Gourley, in charge of the current investigation, is a former Mendocino County deputy. As Peters' widow said to the county supervisors, "The whole thing stinks of a cover-up, and of police absolutely out of control, and of gross racism."
Illegal Searches Continue
A 62-year-old Native American woman from the Cahto Rancheria near Laytonville gave a sworn videotaped statement this past Tuesday, May 16, that deputies pushed past her and searched her house with guns drawn and without a warrant the previous evening after they first asked consent to search and she explicitly denied permission. After finding nothing, the deputies left, and one said to her "We'll be back." She said that, true to their word, they returned the next morning and repeated the search without permission and without a warrant. She also testified that the previous evening the deputies had done the same thing to her neighbor and "tore up her house." Similar statements attesting to unlawful searches, intimidation and harassment by Mendocino Sheriff's deputies against Native Americans are accumulating. A civil rights attorney will be talking with Round Valley citizens today about filing a civil rights lawsuit against the county.
Action Alert:
For further information, the Round Valley Community Support Coalition can be reached at (707) 468-1660, or fax (707) 462-2370, write c/o MEC, 106 W. Standley St., Ukiah, CA 95482. Donations can be sent to the Red Alliance Defense Fund, P.O. Box 513, Covelo, CA 95428.
Copyright Mendocino Environmental Center 1995