Point Reyes Light - October 14, 2004
Park drops efforts to prosecute four teenagers
By Jacob Resneck
Point Reyes National Seashore and the Marin District Attorney’s Office this week revealed that neither the federal government nor county government will prosecute any of the four teenagers connected with the July 28 pepper-spraying incident.
"At the request of the Park Service and based on our own review, there will be no charges filed," Assistant DA Ed Berberian told The Light on Tuesday.
The Park Service request came in the form of a letter to DA Paula Kamena from National Seashore Supt. Don Neubacher. "We appreciate our working relationship with the District Attorney’s Office and your staff time on the Miller Case (No. 04002)," the park superintendent wrote Sept. 28. "After a thorough review by our office, we have decided to not proceed with pressing charges in this matter."
By then, county prosecutors had already reviewed the Park Service’s evidence against pepper-spray victims Chris Miller, 18, and his 17-year-old sister Jessica, and had reported it would not charge them with resisting arrest, as Neubacher originally wanted.
Park spokesman John Dell’Osso on Tuesday acknowledged the National Seashore had received the DA’s report, but "our decision was made earlier. We felt it was the right thing to do towards healing the community."
The incident occurred six weeks ago when two law-enforcement rangers, Roger Mayo and Angelina Gregorio, extensively pepper-sprayed the Miller siblings near the Green Bridge in Point Reyes Station – not on park property.
Four days later, after the children’s father Mark Miller let Neubacher know the family intended to sue the Park Service. The park superintendent asked the county to prosecute the Inverness Park siblings on charges of resisting arrest. Neither was being arrested on any charge when the pepper-spraying occurred.
Spraying grew out of unrelated traffic stop
The spraying began around 9 p.m. July 28 when the siblings approached rangers Mayo and Gregorio to ask why their friends Emile Kempf of Inverness and Will White of Marshall, both 18, were in custody.
Mayo four hours earlier had stopped White’s car at White House Pool because it lacked a front license plate. White and Kempf were on their way home after getting off work teaching youngsters to sail at the Inverness Yacht Club.
After the traffic stop, the two sailing instructors complained to sheriff’s deputies and tried to complain at National Seashore headquarters that Mayo had been abusive during the traffic stop. During the stop, Kempf later reported, Mayo grabbed him by his clothing and yanked him out of White’s car.
This happened, Kempf said, after he complained that the traffic stop was unduly long and that both of them were wet and weary.
After the sailing instructors attempted to lodge complaints against him, Mayo found White’s car hours later on the levee road, where Kempf was visiting a friend, and took both sailing instructors into custody. He then drove them to park headquarters where he cited them on charges of "threatening behavior." Those charges now have also been dropped, along with the "fix-it ticket" Mayo had issued to White for not having a front plate and for not having his registration and proof of insurance in the car.
How spraying came about
The pepper-spraying of the Millers occurred after Mayo and Gregorio drove the sailing instructors back to Point Reyes Station and were about to release them. When the siblings arrived and asked what was going on, they were greeted with a frenzy of pepper-spraying.
Public outcry was immediate, for witnesses said they saw both siblings pepper-sprayed after being made to sit on the ground. Both Mayo and Gregorio sprayed Jessica off and on for several minutes before and after she was in handcuffs, the victims and witnesses said.
The Park Service has now concluded an internal investigation into the rangers’ behavior, but the results are still secret.
Jessica this week told The Light she is relieved that she and her brother will not be prosecuted. "It’s just a lot less stress for me," she said. "I don’t have to worry about being prosecuted for something I didn’t do." The next step, she added, will be bringing the rangers to justice.
Park Service stays mum on results of investigation
Despite backing down over pressing charges against the teens, findings of the internal investigation of the rangers’ conduct has not yet been released to the public although it is completed and was scheduled for release three weeks ago.
In response to public outcry, the park service announced days after the incident that Agent Paul Crawford from Lake Mead National Recreation Area in Nevada would look into the rangers conduct and release a public report. Agent Crawford made two trips to the National Seashore, interviewing rangers and witnesses, though he did not meet with the Miller family after they asked to have an attorney present during the interview.
"Don Neubacher and everyone here at the [Western] Regional Office [of the Park Service] is just as frustrated as you are," spokeswoman Holly Bundock told The Light. "I promise that we’ll release the report just as soon as it’s available."
Suspicious about delay
"I’m curious about the substance of the National Park Service’s report. Or if there is even a report at all," said Gordon Kaupp, an attorney representing the Miller family. He said that the decision not to press charges by the DA and Park Service is further proof that the Millers are innocent of any wrongdoing.
"Some people are saying, ‘Wait for the facts to come out. Wait for the facts to come out,’" he noted, "but the DA can file charges even when it’s questionable whether wrongdoing occurred. It seems that by not filing charges, the DA reached the conclusion that there’s not even a question of wrongdoing by Jessica and Chris Miller."