 Ever since the death of George Floyd, Walnut Creek residents have been gathering in large numbers to protest in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement. For this East Bay town, the issue of police brutality became very personal in June 2019 when 23-year-old Miles Hall was fatally shot and killed by the Walnut Creek police. I think what kind of started me into organizing versus just like attending the rallies more, I was reading the Justice for Miles Hall website and he went to the same elementary school as me. And it just like really hurt my heart to think that like, because I was at the campus when I was reading it and I was like, I can't believe I'm at the same elementary school he went to that we both went to, but I can like come back onto the campus and he can't. It just made me very sad and that kind of was the starting point for, ooh, gonna take the next step into the fight. After George Floyd was killed, I kind of just had enough. I am very passionate about this movement and I know that it is very possible for my dad to become the next hashtag and I cannot let that happen. I will not let that happen. Miles Hall suffered from a schizoaffective disorder and his family had been working with the Walnut Creek police for two years to protect Hall during his mental health episodes. It wasn't until September of this year that the city reached a settlement with the Hall family. We've had certain demands and we didn't really feel like the city council was listening to us until the death of George Floyd and the national movement started. So that's kind of hard to see. It's like, okay, now you guys want to listen. Now you guys want to make changes, which again, we're appreciative of, but it's just, it's hard the way things worked out. Just the fact that we had very minimal asks from the city from the day that my brother was killed, one of those being to get those officers off the street and that they can't even respect that and respect our family enough and take accountability for their actions is it's sick. You know, it's not, it's not right. So I think the settlement is just one step closer to getting justice, but it does not mean justice for my brother. And it doesn't mean that our fight is over by any means. It's just kind of closing one chapter of the book. The Hall family and other community members are pushing to create a 24 seven non police response for mental health crisis calls. Walnut Creek Police Captain Jay Hill feels law enforcement is still necessary for more violent calls, but is looking to partner with neighboring cities to create a crisis intervention team. The idea is to increase the availability and likelihood of at least one specially trained officer being available at any given time as a shared resource between jurisdictions and respond to mental health crisis. This is seen as a supplement to the mobile crisis response team that the city manager was just talking about. Community members are still pushing for the officers involved to be fired, but also for larger structural change. I don't think justice is just like firing the officers who killed him or like, like with other cases firing officers who killed the person. But for me personally, I think justice is more changing the system like the whole system that allowed me injustice to happen. So it doesn't happen again. It's about accountability and being able to make change and make sure that this doesn't happen to other families and other people. Reporting for Cal TV, I'm Shannon Mackle.