After a grueling six-week trial, a jury awarded the family of a young motorcyclist $5.9 million after he was struck and killed by an off-duty sergeant who had been drinking. A U.S. Department of Justice lawsuit filed against Torrance Police in the 1990s uncovered claims that officers routinely used racial slurs and even had code Gascn has already publicly identified two of the men involved in the scandal as former Officers Cody Weldin and Christopher Tomsic, who were charged in August with conspiracy and vandalism for allegedly spray-painting a swastika inside a vehicle. Every time I turn around, somebody has a complaint against them, said Royce Esters, president of the Compton National Assn. Ponegalek argued that The Times analysis was incomplete, as it did not include statistics involving complaints filed by other officers. So, I started asking if we had checked for text messages.. District attorneys records reviewed by The Times showed Tomsic sent a slew of racist images and messages, including a picture of former President Reagan feeding a monkey with a caption stating Reagan used to babysit [former President] Obama.. Atty. In total, the officers were listed as potential witnesses in nearly 1,400 cases in the last decade, according to district attorneys records The Times obtained through a public records request. Its one of the most exhaustive reviews that one could ever do in the state of California, and its a very important step for us, he added. The sum was upped to $9 million by a judge and the case finally was settled for $6.5 million. Weldin did not deny painting the car even after the tow driver asked him to come clean, said the affidavit. 4. On July 2, the Torrance City Attorneys Office filed a criminal complaint charging Lena Hernandez, with battery, a violation of California Penal Code Section 242. We have a group of officers who, apparently in addition to harboring very biased and racist beliefs, also may be engaging in inappropriate force that could be illegal in some cases, he said. Long Beach City Prosecutor Doug Haubert did not respond to repeated calls and e-mails seeking information about the criminal case against the homeless man. Mitchell, who was Black, was suspected of driving a stolen vehicle when he pulled into a Ralphs parking lot in Torrance in December 2018, according to a district attorneys office memo clearing the officers of wrongdoing. Atty. 1 3 are answered and 4 is No. The Times did not independently view documentation of racist text messages sent by any of those four officers, though the newspaper did review a document that showed Concannon sent messages that are part of the investigation. However, Jackson rejected the grand jurys request to initiate an appeal process if the complainant is dissatisfied with the disposition of an investigation. A lot of times people complain about the lack of local control and how other decision makers far removed are trying to call the shots, Armour said. Im not going to tell you were not going to take some heat from time to time, but I think even good departments do that, Mayor Dee Hardison said. Rob Bonta said Wednesday his office will investigate the department in the wake of the scandal. . We are aggressive, and sometimes we get some lawsuits, he said. Frequently, hateful comments were targeted at Black people. - William O. Douglas, Associate Justice (1939 - 1975), Peace Officer Standards & Training [POST] Departments, Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training, Supreme Court of the United States [SCOTUS]. Torrance recorded fewer violent crimes in 1993 than many neighboring cities of comparable size, according to the FBI. Pursuant to the California Public Records Act (California Government Code 6250), I hereby request the following records: We are Economics Professors in the College of Business at Ferris State University, and are engaged in an empirical research project on police behavior and citizen complaints. Torrance police officials acquired evidence of the text message threads during their investigation of Weldin and Tomsic, according to Ponegalek, though he declined to give a specific timeline of when they obtained the data. The Justice Department filed a lawsuit against Torrance--as well as others against El Monte, Alhambra and Pomona--claiming that the police and fire departments discriminated against minorities during hiring. Some include all discharges and some exclude missed shots. Hutchings holds a B.A. The Police Departments recent racist text-messagingscandal in which the officers responsible for Mitchells death participated has onlyfurtheredcalls for more robust police accountability. He graduated from California State University, Fullerton, in 1981 with a bachelor of arts in communication. PROOF OF SERVICE Executed by Plaintiff Robert Thomson, upon Defendant Torrance Police Department served on 8/2/2011, answer due 8/23/2011. Schroeder used a carotid restraint hold sometimes referred to as a blood choke to subdue a homeless Black man in a park in November 2018, according to Long Beach police records The Times obtained through a public records request. Lacey cleared the officers of wrongdoing in all three deaths, but Gascn has reopened the investigation into Mitchells killing . California Atty. In December of 2011, a Superior Court judge ruled that the California Assembly must also disclose budget records of individual lawmakers, after some California newspapers filed a lawsuit accusing legislators of flouting the states open records laws. Former Daily Breeze reporter and columnist Nick Green retired in 2021 after more than two decades with the newspaper covering Torrance, Lomita, Carson, the Palos Verdes Peninsula, soccer and the craft beer industry. Sometimes youve got to do things your own damn self, Kawamoto replied, later adding a comment that he wanted to always make Torrance great again, a reference to former President Trumps ubiquitous political slogan. Every investigation, therefore, is undertaken with the dual objective of opening channels of communications between the department and the community, and maintaining an on-going review of Department Services and Policies. Torrance removed two warnings on its police complaint form that threatened the complainant with legal action for making a false report after a county grand jury investigation concluded they were intimidating. Compton, with a population of just 96,000, recorded 62 killings during the same period. Critics of the department have a different term for the line of demarcation: the Great White Wall, they call it, a racial boundary that they believe is patrolled with apartheid vengeance by the overwhelmingly white Torrance Police Department. Mark Ponegalek, a Torrance police spokesman, could not confirm or deny the identities of the officers involved, but said 15 have been placed on administrative leave in relation to the scandal. That number did not include Tomsic, Weldin, or Schroeder, he said. Country: United States Address 1: 340 Blount Ave City: Guntersville State: Alabama Zip Code: 35976-1106 County: Marshall County Phone #: 256-571-7571 Fax #: 256-571-7570 Police1 is revolutionizing the way Los Angeles, Randall Emmett, Ambyr Childers settle domestic violence restraining order dispute, Column: Supreme Court conservatives may want to block student loan forgiveness. Thanks for your help, and let me know if further clarification is needed. The department has also hired an outside law firm to conduct a review of the scandal, he said. Some City Council members said they went outside the department for a chief because of unhappiness at the number of suits against the city. Investigators had Dunn phone Weldin while they listened in on the call. SB 2 is very expansive, Hart said, noting that the American Civil Liberties Union of California recently announced its support for the bills expanded approach to police accountability. If you have questions about this request or suggestions, we would be happy to discuss them with you. 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If I were a citizen, youre damned right Id want people stopped . They have every complaint in California theyre not picking and choosing what theyre responding to, she said, adding that the state board will provide huge oversight.. Long Beach police officials determined the use of force was justified, the records show. The officers comments spared no color or creed: They joked about gassing Jewish people, assaulting members of the LGBTQ community, using violence against suspects and lying during an investigation into a police shooting, according to district attorneys office records reviewed by The Times. Weldin and Tomsic are accused of spray-painting a swastika on a vehicle impounded from a theft suspect in January 2020. A Torrance police officer has been charged with assault for his role in a 2018 shooting. He declined to offer a timetable on that review and would not say whether the officers involvement in the text scandal would affect that probe. The officer has also been implicated in a racist text message scandal involving a dozen other officers. Before they start complaining too loudly about how much it would cost to run this commission, Armour said, they need to consider what it costs to not have a commission making their policies better and making them less subject to litigation.. While I am understanding of the pressures borne by the police, I do not wish my son to live in a world in which he and his friends are confronted and ordered about by two officers at gunpoint, in which he is intimidated and traumatized by uniformed thugs . The Torrance Police Department has made vigorous efforts to achieve this status, and it is our desire to provide the means whereby it might be sustained. The Records Division public counter is located in the main lobby of the Police Department. Thank you in advance for your anticipated cooperation in this matter. Without that officer, you couldnt prove that case.. Part of our responsibilities includes interpreting federal and state laws, as well as departmental policy in determining the release and retrieval of confidential criminal information. Lopez had been fleeing police in a truck, and the officers said he attempted to ram them when they opened fire, according to a district attorneys office memo that determined the fatal shooting was justified. Webbyot port allen how common is a false positive herpes test; free teen tubes stnr disposable not charging; asriah queen sue lightning lost stream; legolas and thranduil fanfiction lemon . Usually, conversations always seemed to circle back to vile insults or depictions of violence against Black people. The officers described the weapon, later determined to be a break barrel air rifle, as pinched between Mitchells legs, though neither alleged he grabbed it or pointed it at them before they opened fire. After years of such complaints, the U.S. Department of Justice is investigating accusations of racist policing by Torrance, the countys third-largest police department. The grand jury found that Torrance was one of only two police departments among those it reviewed that warned complainants that filing a false claim against a police officer is a misdemeanor. Civil rights activists and police watchdog groups claim that the department is among the most As an expression of that Right to Know, we have coordinated valuable information from a number of resources into a single, public-facing, searchable database. Towing Services (Van Lingen): 310-370-4533 / 310-326-9220, Torrance Mental Evaluation Team: 310-618-5683, 3031 Torrance Blvd, Torrance, CA 90503 | P: (310) 328-5310 | Contact | Login. Jeremy White and Eugene Pesikov sued Torrance and several individual police officers last year. What is the total number of citizen complaints (allegations of misconduct) made against your departments officers annually for the last 10 years? Please include the type of complaint (i.e., use of force, abuse language, unwarranted search) and the result of complaint (i.e., sustained, exonerated). Newly disclosed text messages in which a trio of San Francisco Police Department officers referred to minorities as barbarians, cockroaches and other slurs should trigger an even larger review of past criminal cases for signs of racial bias, according to the citys public defender. According to a Times review of public records, Concannon has shot only one person during his career: Christopher DeAndre Mitchell. Torrance did indicate it would comply with most recommendations made by the grand jury though, including: Five of the police departments surveyed Torrance was not one of them did not use complaints to identify potential problems, which the grand jury concluded was the entire point of an effective complaint system. The panel also found Torrance was the only city it studied that indicated a police officer may bring a civil action against a complainant who falsely accuses a police officer of misconduct, criminal conduct or incompetence. As such, we do not have access to facts of the underlying investigation, or the alleged inappropriate materials. And several jurors laid blame for an above-the-law attitude on then-Chief Donald E. Nash, who resigned a year and a half later, six months before his planned retirement. (Please list officer firearm discharge directed at a person separately from a shooting involving an animal and separately from accidental firearm discharges). Within weeks, Torrance police provided the district attorneys office with more than 200 gigabytes of data, which showed the officers had been exchanging racist messages since at least 2018, according to Teran, the advisor to the district attorney. Gascn has hired a special prosecutor to review for possible criminal charges. His stories have led to the closure of a chain of badly-run group homes, the end of a state program that placed criminals in inappropriate public jobs and the creation of a civilian oversight office for the Orange County Sheriff's Department, among other things. An attorney for the union said the officers were barred from commenting on the investigation. If you wish to file a formal complaint, it will be necessary for you to complete a personnel complaint form (provided below). Rollo Green--who, according to testimony, had a history of alcohol abuse--caused the death of Kelly Rastello, 19, of Long Beach, by making an illegal left-hand turn in front of the motorcyclist, jurors said. The Times identified 13 officers in its investigation, including Tomsic, Weldin and Schroeder, meaning there are an additional five Torrance officers under investigation whose identities remain unknown to the public. We had to [expletive] her up because we knew he wouldnt, one officer wrote in one exchange about an altercation with a female suspect. Please find attached the information requested in your email. In the course of my work I regularly defend police officers and police policy, Cramer wrote. . Robert Cramer, an assistant city attorney with the city of Los Angeles and the father of Nicholas Cramer, a plaintiff in one of the lawsuits, said the three boys involved were not chipping away at anything the night of May 26--they were returning home from a movie. Dunn said he was frustrated that he was getting blamed for the vandalism. According to an investigation by The Times, the theft of 44 guns from an L.A. gun store has spurred a cascade of allegations against LAPD officers and a roiling department scandal. Police officials say they were investigating Daniels claim and could not comment. If your department logs complaints in a database, spreadsheet, or other log, a copy of those logs is fine instead. Kristy Hutchings covers all things Long Beach including local government, politics, and the environment. In Torrance, the Police and Fire Departments costs make up 65% of the citys general fund budget. The picture above it showed several Black men who had been lynched. Dunn then placed a monitored call to Tomsic, who tried to blame Weldin, saying, Weldin is the instigator of all this. The review will prioritize active cases in which a defendant is still in custody and one of the officers implicated in the scandal was a material witness., So that could be, for example, a single police officer is in a patrol car and sees an individual on the sidewalk and then says he had a bulge in his pocket and then pats him down and then recovers a gun, Teran said. Protein powder and dry cereal were scattered throughout the car. The database is always in development and more organizations, POST Departments, and officers are being added daily. Want the latest investigative and FOIA news? For assistance please contact our Records Division at (310) 618-5529, or you may place a request, pursuant to CPRA, directly to the Torrance City Clerk located in City Hall, 3031 Torrance Blvd., Torrance, CA 90503. You can also visit their webpage to make a Public Records Act Request online. 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