Hermosa Beach anti-oil activist Chris Miller has been removed from the Hermosa Beach Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors as a result of allegations that she led an obscene chant against a police officer.
In a letter to the chamber, Police Chief Sharon Papa alleged that Miller called officers “losers,” and encouraged people to chant “f… the police” in the midst of an election night celebration over the defeat of Measure O on March 3.
Miller is a well-known local figure who for two decades has been a photographer for the Beach Reporter and whose father, Warren Miller, is an action-sports filmmaking pioneer. She said she got carried away in the revelry at the Standing Room on Hermosa Avenue that night and at one point yelled at a police officer across the street. But she said she never yelled obscenities at the officer.
The Hermosa Beach Police Officers Association had supported the failed proposal to drill for oil as a way to increase the police department budget.
“You’re not getting a raise tonight!” Miller recalled yelling. “I was caught up in the moment. That’s all it was,” she later said. “There was so much joy that night. There was no animosity and no reason to chant obscenities at the police. That’s so far from the atmosphere of the evening.”
Those who were on the outside patio of the Standing Room that night described a jubilant crowd that grew boisterous as a KTLA (Channel 5) cameraman captured footage of the Measure O opponents, who began chanting “No on O,” to ham for the camera.
Officer George Brunn’s observations of Miller were written by his supervisor into the police logbook that night. The event subsequently became the subject of a back-and-forth exchange between Chief Papa and Chamber Chairman Ken Hartley, which led to Miller being removed from the chamber board.
Councilmember Nannette Barragan, at Tuesday’s council meeting, expressed skepticism about Papa’s account of the election night incident.
“Shouldn’t an investigation have been done before the (chamber) letter was sent?” Barragan asked. “In the meantime, someone has suffered consequences.”
Papa responded, “When you have a member of a board taunting an officer, it’s inappropriate.”
Papa said there was nothing unusual about her approaching the head of a community organization to discuss a misbehaving board member. She said she had no reason to disbelieve her officer’s log entry, and that she would do the same thing again, under similar circumstances. She said community leaders must be held to a higher standard than general members of the public.
Papa contacted Hartley two days after the Measure O vote to express concern that the taunting incident would create a rift between the chamber and the police department, which could threaten their cooperation for chamber events such as the St. Patrick’s Day Parade, according to Hartley.
“I had to make several phone calls to HBPD, HBPOA and the police chief to offer my apologies on behalf of the chamber to keep them from pulling out of the St. Patrick’s day parade,” Hartley wrote to Miller in a March 18 letter.
On March 19, he notified Miller that she was on a year’s probation with the chamber and would need to send a written apology to the police department. Papa also told Miller in a March 11 phone conversation that she needed to submit a written apology to the department.
“I told (Miller) we have worked hard to maintain a collaborative working relationship with the chamber and her actions could singlehandedly destroy that partnership unless she apologized for her behavior,” Papa told Hartley.
Miller denied Papa’s request. She said she could not write an apology without seeing exactly what she was accused of doing. Miller apologized to Papa over the phone for any misunderstanding, and also apologized to Brunn for any hurt feelings at a charity event on March 16, she said.
Miller said she was not fully aware of the police department’s allegations against her until March 24, when she obtained a letter from Papa to Hartley from the day before. The letter outlined Miller’s participation in calling officers losers and leading the ‘f… the police’ chant.
A couple days later Miller filed a public records request with the police department for video footage the police had obtained of the scene that night, as well as the police log of the incident. The request was denied because the incident remains under investigation.
On April 2, the chamber’s board met with Miller. Miller called the meeting a “tribunal.”
“The police’s complaint was handed out without my side of it,” she said. “Fifteen people that you trusted are handed a letter with all these accusations … Who knew the chamber and the police were in cahoots in the back room?”
Hartley declined to discuss the chamber’s meeting with Miller and said the issue is between Miller and the police department, not Miller and the chamber.
“We only react to what we’re dealt,” Hartley said.
Miller has enlisted witnesses to substantiate her side of the story. At Tuesday’s city council meeting, a handful of Measure O opponents who were on the patio election night told the council that no obscenities were yelled at police by their party. Miller, who was not present at the council meeting, submitted a letter asking the city to investigate the incident.
“This accusation from the police is absolutely false,” Miller-supporter Jose Bacallao said at the meeting. “It concerns me that the police would make this baseless and defaming accusation. I want a public apology … I would like the city council to investigate. Actions like this divide our community and should not be tolerated.”
Miller and her supporters also submitted to the city a link to the KTLA coverage of election night, which aired live at roughly the same time – about 10 p.m. – as the incident. The video shows the “No on O” chant, but no evidence of a “f… the police” chant. The video also shows children with their parents.
Papa said the department is conducting an inquiry into the evening’s events. A second officer who was in the area will also be questioned.
“If we go deep into who is being punished, there is some stuff that is a little bit uglier than we would even like to talk about,” Miller-supporter Sheryl Main told the council Tuesday night. “People are hurting and reputations can be scarred, and it’s not worth it.”
