You would want to consult them, figure out what their values and viewpoints are, then legislate and implement their values not yours.. In a four-page letter written earlier this month to Superior Court Presiding Judge Daniel J. Buckley, City Manager LeRoy Jackson said the city had complied with the grand jurys recommendation and removed such warnings from its complaint forms and related materials.. We had to [expletive] her up because we knew he wouldnt, one officer wrote in one exchange about an altercation with a female suspect. . Frequently, hateful comments were targeted at Black people. Without that officer, you couldnt prove that case.. In Torrance, the Police and Fire Departments costs make up 65% of the citys general fund budget. And new officers, according to claims in the court papers, are often instructed by their training supervisors to stop and question black motorists without cause. Although the current race-related lawsuits have shined a stark and unflattering light on the force, it is not the first time that Torrance police have come under legal scrutiny. The warrant was obtained in March that year with an affidavit that lays out the genesis of the text debacle that has made national headlines. 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. Share & Bookmark, Press Enter to show all options, press Tab go to next option, National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES), Consolidated Plan: HOME, HOME-American Rescue Plan (HOME-ARP), Candidate Registration & Qualification Form, Torrance Police Department Quarterly Reports, Trust Building Campaign - Torrance Police Department Strategic Plan. The city also pointed towards Harts recently established Chiefs Advisory Board which aims to serve as a forum for discussion to foster understanding between the police department and the community as another means of oversight as the city awaits the investigation results and the official establishment of the state oversight board. 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. I actually made some comments about how, generally, when someone does this kind of stuff, there are bigger patterns of behavior. 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. Another picture he sent referred to an African American baby as a Pet Niguana, according to the records, and he also sent a message mocking the fact that he was the subject of a racial profiling complaint. And he wrote De Ladurantey a letter after the incident. Review comes amidst allegations of excessive force, racist text messages, and other discriminatory misconduct. Concannon, Chavez and fellow Torrance Police Officers Andrew Kissinger and Enrique Villegas are also under investigation as part of the scandal, according to three people with direct knowledge of the case and a review of district attorneys records. Gascn said the texts are proof that some Torrance officers hate the communities they were hired to serve. 3300 Civic Center Drive, Torrance, CA 90503. Please include documentation regarding how many of these officer-involved shootings involved disciplinary action. in journalism from the University of Southern California. 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 . Gascn said he first became aware of the situation in July, when he was given a briefing about the pending vandalism charges. . Learn more. Daniels said the officer approached him three days later at a local mall. (and) until the City Council and the city manager recognize that theres a problem, there wont be a solution.. At certain levels noises are 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. Jackie Lacey, but the case is one of several that Gascn has hired a special prosecutor to review for possible criminal charges. 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. The most controversial incident involving officers linked to the racist text scandal is the 2018 shooting death of Christopher DeAndre Mitchell. . Any police department mirrors the community, said Wally Murker, head of the departments detective division. The database is always in development and more organizations, POST Departments, and officers are being added daily. City officials say they are highly skeptical of both stories. Weldin and Tomsic are accused of spray-painting a swastika on a vehicle impounded from a theft suspect in January 2020. Dont ask me where that lump on her forehead came from though.. Records operates on a round-the-clock basis, performing numerous tasks aiding our department, other law enforcement agencies, and the general public to gain access to necessary records. This project requires us to request data from your department. In the Mitchell case, that could be especially concerning. A Justice Department official said the agency broadened its inquiry because of complaints such as those in a federal civil rights lawsuit filed in September by three teen-agers with no criminal records who are now students at prestigious East Coast universities. it. Thats what got us scared.. Transparency of (a) police departments internal operations starts with an effective citizen complaint process, the report found. The caption read hanging with the homies.. Truly favorable attitudes cannot prevail when a question of misuse of authority, either real or imagined, arises. A survey of records at Police Watch, a nonprofit Los Angeles group that monitors Southern California police agencies, revealed numerous complaints by minorities alleging that they were pulled over by Torrance police for no reason. WebThe Torrance Police Department is happy to assist you in obtaining or reviewing any records, documents, or reports to which you are legally entitled. The Rastello familys attorneys, Browne Greene and Brian Panish of Santa Monica, had alleged that fellow officers protected Green by not testing his blood-alcohol level, altering witness statements and using one of the departments few untapped phone lines to report the accident to commanders. What constitutes an officer-involved shooting in your department? Please provide a link to any and all publicly available reports containing the data above. Katz, the former independent police auditor, described those statistics as concerningly low.. 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. Thank you in advance for your anticipated cooperation in this matter. MuckRock is a non-profit collaborative news site that gives you the tools to keep our government transparent and accountable. According to their attorney, they were not cited. . Los Angeles, Randall Emmett, Ambyr Childers settle domestic violence restraining order dispute, Column: Supreme Court conservatives may want to block student loan forgiveness. The city has doled out millions of dollars in recent years to settle lawsuits charging officers with everything from using excessive force to orchestrating massive cover-ups. The findings were outlined in a grand jury report titled Policing the Police that investigated how the public could make complaints against police officers in a dozen county cities, including Inglewood and Culver City in addition to Torrance. County prosecutors had tossed 35 felony cases as of mid-November, and the Torrance city attorneys office has dismissed an additional 50, officials said. Please include the type of complaint (i.e., use of force, abuse language, unwarranted search) and the result of complaint (i.e., sustained, exonerated). TheCalifornia Public Records Actis a series of laws meant to guarantee that the public has access to public records of governmental bodies in California. Sincerely,Alexander Cartwright and Jennifer Dirmeyer. One said that Torrance officers had shot Hispanic teen-agers before just for wearing big (street gang uniform) pants, Jose Esparza said. And its not new., De Ladurantey flatly denies that his officers pull over motorists because of the color of their skin, but acknowledges that part of a police officers job is to sense deviation. Kawamoto also referred to Black men as savages in the texts, according to district attorneys records reviewed by The Times. I dont want to have a board that is nothing more than a place that people come and give their complaints.. 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 . They were stopped, they say, because two of them are black. 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. 2. 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. Providing the complainant a copy of their own statement at the time a complaint is filed. The complaints against Torrance allege a more intense racism. Complaints were filed directly with the department because, unlike a number of Southern California cities, including Los Angeles, Torrance has no citizen commission overseeing its Police Department. Some supervisors point out to new officers during their probation periods the difference between street niggers and upstanding black citizens, one former officer said. 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. If I were a citizen, youre damned right Id want people stopped . 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.. Thank you very much for providing the information we requested. Ashcraft also mentioned her concern that Torrance simply doesnt have the money to create and operate an oversight board with investigation power. What they found has resulted in a black eye for the Torrance Police Department. And De Ladurantey said complaints and litigation are an inherent part of modern policing--even in suburban Torrance. All the while, the city contended officers were innocent and that all the allegations were fabricated, including one that officers had squeezed the testicles of three teenage Latino detainees. The grand jury also said that only three police departments in the county have any sort of civilian oversight. 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 Protein powder and dry cereal were scattered throughout the car. Three years into De Laduranteys tenure, though, critics question whether much has changed. Please fill out, sign and mail or submit at our station lobby. Some critics say the citys most recent vote against a survey is a show of the councils unwillingness to address the concerns of the Torrance community. The City Council, in a 6-1 vote on March 15, voted against the proposed city survey, arguing that existing oversight measures will be enough to eradicate any misconduct systemic or otherwise in the police department. 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. 3300 Civic Center Dr. things have not changed, said Tim Rastello, brother of the motorcyclist and a Denver civil rights attorney. Officers called Black men savages,and several variations of the N-word, according to documents reviewed by The Times. Civil rights activists and police watchdog groups claim that the department is among the most 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. Sgt. 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