Activists Want a Trial

The Alliance for Police Accountability, a group that started up about a year ago, delivered an estimated 1,000 signatures to Stephen Zappala, the Allegheny County District Attorney on Friday morning urging that criminal charges be filed against the three city police officers involved in the beating of Jordan Miles. Among them was Miles' mother.

In early May, the federal Department of Justice announced that there would be no federal charges filed against the three officers who had been on paid leave from the police department, because federal prosecutors did not believe they could prove a case beyond a reasonable doubt.

Brandi Fisher, the chair of the alliance, believes that since the federal investigation has come to a close, it is now up to Mr. Zappala to pursue the case.

"He has no reason to not prosecute," she said, saying she only wants the officers to be held accountable to the same laws all citizens are held accountable to.

DA spokesman Mike Manko said his office continues to review the matter.

Miles, then a high school student was arrested in January of 2010, on Tioga Street as he walked from his mother's home to his grandmother's.

Police had said he was acting suspicious and resisted arrest. He was brutally beaten and had hair ripped from his head.

Those charges were dropped.