Bobby "Lateef" Miller was a former political activist who shot and killed an NYPD detective in self-defense.
History[]
Miller was born on February 24, 1948. He attended New York City College, where he met Rolando August, a fellow recruiter for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, in August 1967. After the Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. assassinations, the two joined the Black Panther Party out of anger. In 1969, Miller made statements encouraging his followers to kill police officers, who at the time were violently clashing with the Party. In 1971, he was convicted of multiple counts of armed robbery for holding up banks, which he called civil disobedience and a means of getting compensation for systemic racism.
Eventually, Miller distanced himself from violent political activism but retained his belief that all police officers were racists. He embraced Islam, renamed himself "Lateef", and became a family man, as well as a known community activist. In 1995, he was hired to obtain grants for the Riverside Action Project, an eviction prevention program based in Harlem. At a certain point, he and an associate named Selina Watts became the subjects of an investigation by the D.A.'s Fraud Bureau for irregularities concerning the eligibility of tenants enrolled in the program. Meanwhile, Miller's hatred of law enforcement grew even more after his teenage nephew was shot and left crippled while evading arrest in Newark.
One day, Lateef worked late and stayed over at Selina's apartment. Just then, Detective Jake Kearsey knocked his door, looking for a robbery witness at the wrong address. Startled, Miller reacted by shooting at Kearsey's direction, and a shootout ensued, resulting in Kearsey's death. Miller went to his lawyer's office, then went into hiding at his mosque, where he was arrested without resistance by Detectives Green and Briscoe. Initially, Lateef called himself a "political prisoner" and pleaded not guilty, but he was later forced to change his plea after a witness placed him near the crime scene. Miller claimed he acted in self-defense, fearing that Kearsey was going to kill him. EADA Jack McCoy tried to convince the jury that Miller's actions were driven by rage for his nephew, by his biased beliefs concerning police officers, and possibly by his fear of being arrested on the fraud charges. In the end, jurors acquitted Miller. (L&O: "Burn, Baby, Burn")