The Torrance Police Division and the California Lawyer Common’s Workplace have entered into an “enforceable agreement” meant to reform the troubled company following a scandal that led prosecutors to toss dozens of legal circumstances linked to officers who despatched racist textual content messages, officers mentioned.
Bonta credited former Torrance Police Chief Jeremiah Hart with approaching him after the scandal first erupted in 2021, resulting in collaborative reform efforts.
“The Torrance Police Department has demonstrated a commitment to self reflection to looking inward … to address systemic challenges,” Bonta mentioned Thursday.
The California Lawyer Common’s Workplace introduced its Torrance investigation in December 2021, the identical day a Instances investigation first revealed the contents of the textual content messages and the names of many of the officers concerned. Court docket data and paperwork obtained by The Instances confirmed the officers made offensive feedback about a variety of teams. They joked about “gassing” Jewish folks, attacking members of the LGBTQ group and utilizing violence in opposition to suspects.
The worst feedback have been saved for Black women and men, who the officers repeatedly referred to as “savages” or referred to with variations of the N-word. One officer shared directions on find out how to a tie a noose and posted an image of a stuffed animal being hung inside police headquarters. One other message referred to the kinfolk of Christopher DeAndre Mitchell, a Black man shot to loss of life by Torrance police in 2018, as “all those [N-word] family members,” in accordance with courtroom data.
Typically, the officers blatantly fantasized concerning the deaths of Black males, ladies and even children.
One officer shared footage of tiny coffins supposed to accommodate the our bodies of Black youngsters they might “put down.” One other imagined executing Black suspects.
“Lucky I wasn’t out and about,” one officer wrote in response to a textual content about Black males allegedly concerned in a Torrance theft, in accordance with data reviewed by The Instances in 2022. “D.A. shoot team asking me why they are all hung by a noose and shot in the back of the head 8 times each.”
The officers additionally recommended a political allegiance of their hate-filled textual content thread. In a dialog about needlessly beating a feminine suspect, Sgt. Brian Kawamoto mentioned he wished to “make Torrance great again,” a play on President Trump’s ubiquitous marketing campaign slogan.
The texts have been despatched between Might 2018 and February 2022, in accordance with investigative stories made public by the California Fee on Peace Officer Requirements and Coaching. Bonta mentioned Thursday that roughly a dozen officers have been concerned within the thread. A minimum of seven of these officers are not employed by the company, in accordance with courtroom data and a POST database.
The group of officers that The Instances linked to the texts has been concerned in at the very least seven critical use-of-force incidents in Torrance and Lengthy Seashore, together with three killings of Black and Latino males, in accordance with police use-of-force data and courtroom filings.
The officers actions have been initially discovered to be justified in every case, although prosecutors later revisited Mitchell’s loss of life and indicted Matthew Concannon and Anthony Chavez on manslaughter prices.
Whereas Concannon and Chavez have been investigated as a part of the scandal, The Instances has by no means seen proof that they despatched racist textual content messages. Previously, authorities have mentioned, some officers below investigation have been conscious of the texts however didn’t ship any hateful messages themselves.
David Chandler can also be awaiting trial on assault prices for taking pictures a Black man within the again in 2018. In complete, 5 officers linked to the textual content thread have been charged with crimes.
The scandal might not have come to mild if not for the actions of former officers Cody Weldin and Michael Tomsic, who have been charged with spray portray a swastika inside a car that was towed from a criminal offense scene in 2021. That incident prompted former Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. George Gascón to launch an investigation into doable hate crime prices. Whereas a hate enhancement was by no means charged within the vandalism case, it led to the execution of warrants on the officers’ cellphones that unveiled the texts.
Tomsic and Weldin pleaded responsible to vandalism earlier this 12 months and gave up their proper to be cops in California. Disciplinary data made public earlier this 12 months recognized Weldin because the “owner” of the group textual content during which lots of the racist remarks have been discovered. The group was dubbed “The Boys,” data present.
By participating in “collaborative reform,” Bonta selected the least forceful technique of reform in Torrance. Typically, the lawyer common’s workplace will search court-mandated reform by way of a settlement, because it has with the Los Angeles County sheriff’s and probation departments, in order that it might ask a decide to drive change if a police company doesn’t comply.
Bonta is now searching for to take over the county’s juvenile halls after the probation division didn’t honor its settlement with the state.
In 2021, Hart personally approached Bonta’s workplace, searching for to work collectively on reform, which can have led the lawyer common to make use of a softer technique. Interim Police Chief Bob Dunn, who got here to Torrance in 2023 after a protracted profession with the Anaheim Police Division, mentioned he believes Hart’s actions ought to present the division is dedicated to reform within the wake of the ugly scandal.
“It was the department that identified the behavior, the department that did the investigation and the department that took the case for criminal filing on the initially involved officers,” Dunn mentioned of the town’s response to the revelation of the textual content messages in 2021.
Lately, Dunn mentioned, the division has taken steps to enhance its use-of-force and police pursuit assessment processes by deploying sergeants to reply to any drive incident. The hope, Dunn mentioned, is to gather higher info from particular person circumstances that can be utilized to coach officers in deescalation. Hart additionally created a Chief’s Advisory Panel to gather higher group enter on points dealing with the division, together with bias allegations, in accordance with Dunn.
