Brother: 'He just snapped'

Thirty minutes before he died in a hail of bullets, Steven "Butter" Miller phoned his brother to tell him he had given up on life.

"I can't take it anymore, P," Miller told his brother, Paris Young, 21. "I'm tired; I'm antsy," Young said Miller told him.

Minutes later, just before 6:30 p.m. Sunday, Miller, 30, walked a short way from his house on Taney Street to the corner at Tasker Street with a loaded .40-caliber semi-automatic weapon in his hand.

Neighbors said he circled a utility pole, screaming unintelligible guttural sounds.

Police Commissioner Sylvester Johnson said Miller was high on "wet" - marijuana laced with embalming fluid and smoked. After neighbors called 911, seven cops fired as many as 85 shots at him. Miller had 21 wounds, including entry and exit injuries.

"He just snapped, I think," Young said.

Young said that his grandmother's recent death, the serious illness that his father is dealing with, and the everyday stresses of trying to provide for his family led to Miller's breakdown.

Miller, Young said, was a good man, a spiritual man, a father of five, and someone he admired.

Young said his brother worked sporadically for a contractor and was enrolled to earn his GED.

Yesterday, Young covered with plastic trash bags the makeshift memorial that had been erected for his brother.

He said he was saddened that the legacy of someone he looked up to as a child had been tarnished by the violent confrontation with police.

"He was a good man that was trying to do right for himself. He was a deep thinker who thought about all the wrong that was going on in the city and wanting to do something about it," Young said as he sat on the steps of the house he had shared with his brother for the past four months near the scene of the confrontation.

Miller, who was one of four children, even tried to keep his only brother off the street when the allure of fast cash from selling drugs appealed to Young.

"He gave me money all the time so that I wouldn't want to sell drugs," Young said as he took a long drag on a cigarette.

"My stepfather also got me into baseball, football, and racing cars, and Steven supported all of that. He came to every game and was there all the time," Young said.

Young understands what happened, but doesn't agree that the police had to kill his brother.

"I understand what they had to do, but why did they have to kill him?"

Earlier, Miller's cousin, Leticia Anderson, agreed. "My cousin was a young guy with mental issues, and we all knew he would get high," she said.

"He never tried to shoot himself or anyone else, though. Why would the cops shoot him so many times?"

Funeral arrangement for Miller were pending.

Young believes that no matter what, his brother will always be watching over him.

"We're just trying to cope now, and what I have to do to move forward is strengthen my own relationship with God and move forward with my career. It's tough."

The block where Miller was shot was quiet yesterday.

As children in bathing suits trying to beat the afternoon heat walked over white chalk circles marking where bullet casings had fallen, a small piece of yellow crime-scene tape blew in the hot breeze. They were remnants of where violence struck this neighborhood and left a family mourning their loved one. *

Staff writer Damon Williams contributed to this report.