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. Want the latest investigative and FOIA news? First, three officers were suspended, and now face firing, for allegedly socializing--in uniform and on duty--with strippers at a private Torrance residence. During an interview with investigators, tow driver Dunn initially said he didnt know anything about the damage, but later broke down and said he saw Tomsic spray painting the outside of the car. Public records in theCalifornia Public Records Actare defined as any writing containing information relating to the conduct of the publics business prepared, owned, used, or retained by any state or local agency regardless of physical form or characteristics. There is a separate category of purely personal information that, although it may be in the custody of a government agency, does not fall under the act. What got them pulled over, the three allege in their suit, was not erratic driving or outstanding warrants. TheCalifornia Public Records Actis a series of laws meant to guarantee that the public has access to public records of governmental bodies in California. From 2016 to 2019, Torrance police upheld just three citizen allegations of police misconduct and zero allegations of racial profiling made against officers, according to data submitted to the California attorney generals office. What constitutes an officer-involved shooting in your department? The officers did not necessarily testify in each case, so its unclear how many of those cases could be affected. The California Attorney Generals ongoing investigation into 13 officers who have been placed on leave for their participating in the exchange of racist text messages that joked about lynching Black men, among other things will provide a check to see where we can optimize performance and increase accountability, Police Chief Jeremiah Hart said during Tuesdays meeting. things have not changed, said Tim Rastello, brother of the motorcyclist and a Denver civil rights attorney. Prior to joining the Press-Telegram, she served as the Daily Breeze's lead city hall reporter. During the struggle, Tomsic said, Ross tried to gain control of his gun, according to a district attorneys office memo clearing the officers of criminal liability. This is a brand new process for the state of California, and I think we have to see how it plays out, Councilmember Heidi Ann Ashcraft said in an interview Wednesday. Torrance, however, has spent more than $1 million so far to defend its hiring practices, with City Atty. I dont want to have a board that is nothing more than a place that people come and give their complaints.. with conspiracy and vandalism for allegedly spray-painting a swastika inside a vehicle. Which of the above data are published publicly? In some of those cases, the plaintiffs are members of the same ethnic groups the officers espoused hatred for in the texts. Rich L.A. homeowners are snapping them up, Left-handed pitchers offer gold-like value for high school teams, Column: How I finally learned to care about Orange Countys crumbling coastline, Shipping firms to pay pipeline company nearly $100 million in O.C. We are located at: 3300 Civic Center Dr. Torrance, CA 90503, 3031 Torrance Blvd, Torrance, CA 90503 | P: (310) 328-5310 | Contact | Login. SB 2 is far reaching and it is another model towards police accountability that we didnt have before in the state, Hart said. The text messages were not on one continuous thread, according to two of the sources. The complaints against Torrance allege a more intense racism. One should allow 10 days for an agency to comply with a records request. The requested documents will be made available to the general public, and this request is not being made for commercial purposes. for having expired tags, for having a taillight out. Simple traffic stops often result in crimes being solved and wanted criminals apprehended, he added. 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Chavez and Concannon were cleared of wrongdoing by former Dist. Sincerely,Alexander Cartwright and Jennifer Dirmeyer. The department has refused to identify them. Kristy Hutchings covers all things Long Beach including local government, politics, and the environment. WebUtilize judgment in screening and maintaining the confidentiality of concerns or complaints presented by students, faculty, staff, applicants, vendors or the general public. A city of 137,000, Torrance had 12 homicides while nearby Inglewood, with 112,000 residents, had 45. Out of hundreds of pages of documents, the judge allowed the Rastello familys attorneys to present 14 cases of alleged misconduct that resulted in little or no punishment, including an off-duty officer who fired 22 shots at a car, many of them out the window of his personal vehicle; a lieutenant who allegedly molested several children; evidence of rapes and beatings by officers, and officers driving drunk while on duty. . Since 2013, the group of officers identified by The Times has been involved in at least seven serious use-of-force incidents in Torrance and Long Beach, including three that ended in the deaths of Black and Latino men, according to police use-of-force records and court filings. Several of the Torrance officers under investigation as part of the scandal have also used serious or deadly force against Black and Latino men while on duty in recent years, according to district attorneys records. Dan Mason, Lohren Price and Nicholas Cramer had just celebrated their graduation from a pricey Studio City prep school by taking in a screening of Beverly Hills Cop III. On their way back to Inglewood, where two of the youths lived, they were stopped, ordered from the car at gunpoint, patted down and made to sit cross-legged on the sidewalk while two Torrance officers searched the car for nearly an hour. Even if the results of investigations are inconclusive, tracking complaints can provide an early warning system to identify and take corrective actions to improve employee conduct.. Torrance Police Department mission is to preserve public safety and quality of life within the City of Torrance, to respond effectively to the changing needs of the community, and to promote mutual respect between the Police Department and the people we serve. If I were a citizen, youre damned right Id want people stopped . PROOF OF SERVICE Executed by Plaintiff Robert Thomson, upon Defendant Torrance Police Department served on 8/2/2011, answer due 8/23/2011. I am writing to ask for some clarification regarding the data on officer-involved shootings you provided us with. The inquiry is an expansion of a probe that began in 1993, when the government sued Torrance to stop what it described as racially biased hiring practices in the citys police and fire departments. Torrance police vehicles outside the Gable House Bowl after a shooting in 2019. 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. The 2017-2018 Los Angeles County Civil Grand Jury observed in the course of its investigation that effective community relations and public trust can be earned through an open and accessible complaint process.. A knife was recovered at the scene. it. If your department logs complaints in a database, spreadsheet, or other log, a copy of those logs is fine instead. Long Beach police officials determined the use of force was justified, the records show. In the course of my work I regularly defend police officers and police policy, Cramer wrote. TheCalifornia Public Records Actdoes not regulate the use of records obtained from public agencies. As such, we do not have access to facts of the underlying investigation, or the alleged inappropriate materials. Both the department and residents cite relatively low crime statistics as evidence of the departments success. 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. One of the suspects arrested there owned a Silver Hyundai Elantra parked on Maricopa. And De Ladurantey said complaints and litigation are an inherent part of modern policing--even in suburban Torrance. If you wish to file a formal complaint, it will be necessary for you to complete a personnel complaint form (provided below). 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. Such claims represent one of the most sensitive areas of police-citizen relations and were cited as a fundamental cause of both the 1965 Watts riots and the broader 1992 Los Angeles riots. Emergency Services: 310-618 The sum was upped to $9 million by a judge and the case finally was settled for $6.5 million. His work has been recognized by the National Headliner Club, the Associated Press Sports Editors, the California Newspaper Publishers Association, the Orange County Trial Lawyers Association and the Orange County Press Club. . Frequently, hateful comments were targeted at Black people. 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. Simpson case, the downfall of Orange County Sheriff-turned felon Michael S. Carona and the use of unauthorized drugs by Olympian Carl Lewis. This is a prime example of running away from local control and accountability and trying to delegate to some people far away who arent a part of the community.. 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. Morgan Ricketts, the attorney for Pesikov and White, said the councils vote was deeply disappointing., The city of Torrance doesnt even want to know what its own residents think about this issue, she said, and I think that was a fair compromise between the parties.. The governments current inquiry into allegations of racial harassment of the public is simply an effort to bolster its discriminatory hiring case against Torrance, one Justice Department official said. But the blow that many believed would force change in the department came in 1989. 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. You want to have a process that shines a light on whats going on and hold people accountable on a local, more granular level.. If your department logs complaints in a database, spreadsheet, or other log, a copy of those logs is fine instead. Although the officers actions were found to be justified in each case, experts say those cases should be reexamined in the context of the hateful messages. WebPOLICE DEPARTMENT DAILY CRIME LOG February 2023 Date Incident Reported Complaint # TSU - MPD Location Offense Classification Date/Time Incident Occurred on or Between Item(s) Stolen (Torrance Parking Lot) Destruction-Damage-Vandalism 2/14/23 14:00 2/14/23 13:45 Sentra The idea that there is no need for a local commission because theres a state process is patently inadequate, because were talking about a nine-member panel that will only be able to deal with the most egregious, flagrant cases that break through, Armour said. 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. . Please feel free to try again. The two officers responded to a report of mail theft in the South Bay city and directed a car linked to the crime to be towed from the scene, authorities 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. Torrance will not survey residents to determine the communitys support for an independent oversight commission to monitor the police department effectively shutting down activists and residents years-long calls for more robust accountability of law enforcement in the city. Black Lives Matter activists have attended nearly every City Council meeting since the fatal police shooting of Christopher DeAndre Mitchell in 2018 to demand Torrance establish an oversight commission. Another officer then sat on Ross legs before others were able to bind Ross arms and legs with a hobble restraint.. Dunn also received a text message from Weldin apologizing for the damage, the affidavit said. One said that Torrance officers had shot Hispanic teen-agers before just for wearing big (street gang uniform) pants, Jose Esparza said. Although the Rastello case shocked much of Southern California, equally startling was a string of other cases--long kept in private police files and brought up at the trial--that offered a rare peek into disciplinary procedures at the department. I questioned whether there was any other things that would lead us to believe that this is not sort of a single crime event, he said. (and) until the City Council and the city manager recognize that theres a problem, there wont be a solution.. Atty. I wanted to follow up on the following Freedom of Information request, copied below, and originally submitted on Aug. 25, 2017. A key purpose for receiving and investigating complaints is to identify law enforcement personnel that frequently or habitually engage in inappropriate behavior, the report said. After one officer shared a news article about someone being arrested for urinating on a Black child and calling them the N-word, Satterfield replied, whats the crime? according to district attorneys records reviewed by The Times. Providing the complainant a copy of their own statement at the time a complaint is filed. 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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. A Torrance police officer has been charged with assault for his role in a 2018 shooting. The city indicated the forms previously only available at the Police Department can now be found in the City Clerks Office and City Hall lobby as well. Our members have a right to due process and should be protected from illegal and unnecessary intrusion into their private lives.. Please enable JavaScript in your browser for a better user experience. The results of that investigation, though, likely wont be made public for another two years or so although Hart said he is working on a new collaborative reform model never before done in the state of California, which would allow quarterly or biannual updates on the status of the investigation. And he wrote De Ladurantey a letter after the incident. The council and Hart appear to have full faith in the oversight power of the state oversight board, though. Police officials say they were investigating Daniels claim and could not comment. Still, in the span of one week in November, the Los Angeles County public defenders office received about 300 letters from prosecutors disclosing potential misconduct by officers implicated in the scandal, said Judith Green, an office spokeswoman. . Torrance Police Department
. in journalism from the University of Southern California. When Gascn charged Officer David Chandler with assault in late August for allegedly shooting an armed man in the back, sources told The Times that Chandler was also under investigation as part of the scandal. I actually made some comments about how, generally, when someone does this kind of stuff, there are bigger patterns of behavior. We dont have the money to do it at the level they (California) do, Ashcraft said. California Atty. 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. Please fill out, sign and mail or submit at our station lobby. Johao Miguel Chavarri, 26, threatened the victims through social media platforms if they refused his request for explicit photos or videos. But theyve hit a snag, Review: A reimagined Secret Garden fails to flower anew at the Ahmanson Theatre, A $150,000 executive protection dog? James Queally writes about crime and policing in Southern California, where he currently covers Los Angeles Countys criminal courts and the district attorneys office. When the jury returned with its massive award to the Rastello family, it said the department had a pattern and practice of whitewashing incidents of officer misconduct. How many officer-involved-shootings were there per year for the last 10 years in your department? . 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. According to their attorney, they were not cited. I really appreciate it. The cost for an oversight commission in Torrance varies heavily depending on what type of model the city would opt for. 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 grand jury also said that only three police departments in the county have any sort of civilian oversight. 3. Gascn has hired a special prosecutor to review for possible criminal charges. Census figures at the same time said 1.7% of Torrance residents were black, 10% were Latino and 22% were Asian. Ross fled from Torrance police when they responded, and became violent when they tried to arrest him, district attorneys records show. The proper administration of law enforcement can be insured only through a highly professional police agency which respects itself and earns the respect of the public. The exact number of officers involved in the scandal is unclear. Rob Bonta announces an investigation into the Torrance Police Department after a Times report on racist texts between officers. That department is infected with the disease of denial . The car owner arrived two days later to pick up his Hyundai at the yard and found the back bumper was spray painted white, a side mirror also was painted and a swastika and smiley face were drawn on the upholstered seats. In total, Torrance police have confirmed 15 officers were placed on administrative leave as a result of the scandal. Two former Torrance police officers were charged with spray-painting a swastika inside of a residents car, and prosecutors are now reviewing hundreds of cases involving the ex-cops, officials said. WebTorrance, CA 90503-5056 310-618-5529 The Records Division is a service support unit within the Services Bureau. You dont hang the star, someone wrote back. Torrance is no stranger to allegations of racist conduct by its police officers. They just go too far over there., Adds David Lynn, a Venice-based private investigator who specializes in police misconduct cases: As far as harassing minorities . Atty. Review comes amidst allegations of excessive force, racist text messages, and other discriminatory misconduct. Torrance settled some suits, lost others and won some, still spending hundreds of thousands of dollars in settlements. Any documentation or reports that detail the annual number of officer-involved shootings in your department for the past 10 years would be sufficient. Torrance police sustained 35 out of 43 internally generated complaints of officer misconduct from 2016 to 2020, Ponegalek said. Gen. Jeremy White and Eugene Pesikov sued Torrance and several individual police officers last year. The officer has also been implicated in a racist text message scandal involving a dozen other officers. This isnt just a lone wolf, this is a huge group.. U.S. Department of Justice lawyers conducted a two-year investigation in the early 1990s into department racism that culminated in a 1993 lawsuit alleging job discrimination in the citys police and fire departments. Schroeder initiated contact with the man because he was sleeping in a park after it closed, the records show, and used the choke to take him down after an altercation. . in which police officers believe a white boy traveling with two blacks is unusual, or an indication of potential crime., Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information, Before and after photos from space show storms effect on California reservoirs, Dramatic before and after photos from space show epic snow blanketing SoCal mountains, The chance of a lifetime: Five friends ski the tallest mountain in Los Angeles, Best coffee city in the world? . An attorney for the union said the officers were barred from commenting on the investigation. The tape showed them continuing to choke and beat Tice, who is white, well after he became unconscious. 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 Improving the availability of complaint forms to the public by making them available in multiple locations with clear signage indicating where they specifically can be found. George Gascn. Some include all discharges and some exclude missed shots. Tomsic answered, Yeah it was Weldin, dude, I know.. (Please list officer firearm discharge directed at a person separately from a shooting involving an animal and separately from accidental firearm discharges). Maybe its a taillight out . Daniels, who is black, moved to Torrance from Michigan this summer to pursue an acting career, and claims that he was pulled over seven times in three months yet never cited. 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. About 13 Torrance officers are on paid leave as the city and the state attorney general investigate the offensive texts, which include jokes about lynchings, gassing Jews and shooting Black men. Mark KickbuschPolice Operations SupervisorRecords DivisionTorrance Police Department3300 Civic Centre DriveTorrance, CA, 90503E: mkickbusch@TorranceCA.gov
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