Torrance Needs a Civilian Oversight Commission
by Catherine Safley
For three years now, Black Lives Matter Los Angeles has maintained the demand that Torrance City Council must establish an Independent Civilian Oversight Commission for the Torrance Police Department. This demand echoes an order issued in 2018 by a California Grand Jury, which the council has continuously failed to heed.
According to the Council on Criminal Justice, Civilian Oversight Commissions “are intended to give voice to community members and enhance transparency and accountability through an independent review and investigation of excessive-force cases and public complaints of police misconduct.” Ideally, civilians with no direct ties to law enforcement will appropriately prioritize the needs and concerns of local communities, leading to more just outcomes. The results of a lack of independent civilian oversight can be seen in the ongoing incidents of brutality and racism by Torrance police officers.
For many residents, seeing Torrance streets swarming with police vehicles serves as a chilling reminder that TPD, whose officers wield the most power in the community, is corrupted by its toxic culture of elitism. This pervasive bias targets and endangers our most marginalized communities. Tellingly, TPD is accountable to no one and intends to keep it that way.
As BLM-LA continues to call for an independent civilian oversight commission at Torrance City Council meetings,Torrance police remain a white supremacist threat to the city. A Los Angeles Times exposé from December 2021 revealed a list of horrors committed by Torrance police. In August 2021, two Torrance officers, Cody Weldin and Christopher Tomsic, vandalized an impounded vehicle, painting a swastika on it. An investigation of the incident has since revealed that 30 officers have engaged in sending and receiving racist, homophobic, and antisemitic text messages in a group thread going back as far as 2018; these included an image of several Black man being lynched with the caption “hanging with the homies,” as well as jokes about “gassing” Jewish people and assaulting LGBTQ+ people. As of December 2021, the Los Angeles public defenders office has around 100 ongoing cases involving Torrance officers named in the texting accusations. Several of the officers have been involved in use-of-force incidents dating back as far as 2013. The text scandal has led to federal charges being filed against Torrance Police Department, and the department is also under independent investigation by the state Department of Justice. These are just the most recent accounts of police misconduct in a city that was once, and for many still is, a sundown town.
The Torrance City Council have made it abundantly clear that they are unwilling to accept the responsibility of holding racist, murderous officers accountable. The call from BLM-LA for a civilian oversight commission was initiated in response to the murder of Christopher De’Andre Mitchell, a young Black man who was shot and killed by Torrance officers Anthony Chavez and Matthew Concannon within 15 seconds of their arrival on the scene. Anthony Chavez is also responsible for the killing of Michael David Lopez, as are officers Christopher Tomsic, Joshua Satterfield and Blake Williams. All of these officers are involved in the racist messaging scandal.
The City Council, headed by City of Torrance Mayor Patrick Furey, has responded to this ongoing demand with increasing hostility. Since BLM-LA and their allies began speaking out at meetings, the council has implemented increasingly stringent and arbitrary rules of conduct, such as being barred from carrying water bottles into the meeting chambers and even clapping. The council has violently escalated on multiple occasions, ordering police officers in riot gear to force protestors out of meetings for “disruption,” injuring some protestors in the process. These aggressions specifically targeted Black protestors who, along with their allies, were outnumbered by police. Since transitioning to virtual meetings, the council has pared down the time allotted for public comment from an hour to two 15 minute sessions, severely limiting the opportunity for any comment from the public at all. In addition to this, in the immediate aftermath of the murder of Christopher De’Andre Mitchell, while his family and organizers were demanding justice in the name of Christopher, the city gave raises and awards to the officers who killed Christopher and others. The city council is clearly unfit to deal with matters of police accountability, yet another reason why Torrance needs a civilian oversight commission to deal with such matters.
Now the Torrance Police Department has established a Police Chief Advisory Board. Serving under the police chief, this board is part of the Torrance Police Department itself. A press release issued on January 13 by Torrance Police Department claims that the Chief’s Advisory Board will function to “share community concerns and increase public trust;” however, unlike independent civilian oversight, the board will have no real power or incentive to hold police accountable for wrongdoing. It seems that this advisory board is the city’s idea of an acceptable stand-in for civilian oversight, but a board beholden to Torrance police can never be an appropriate alternative to an independent commission with no direct ties to the police. The Police Chief Advisory Board will ultimately result in more money and more authority for Torrance police while maintaining a void of accountability.
In light of all this, we urge the Torrance Employee Relations and Public Safety Committee to vote yes on the item for their March 2 committee meeting, to conduct a public survey of Torrance residents regarding the implementation of a citizen oversight commission to work with the Torrance Police Department. We urge all Torrance residents to say yes to an independent Civilian Oversight Commission when the survey is released.
There can be no justice without accountability. Even those who believe that police exist to protect and serve the populace should be able to get on board with holding police accountable when they harm and kill our community members and clearly demonstrate bias. We all want safety in our community, and that means we must hold all parties who do harm accountable, including police.
This piece was written as a collaborative effort by members of White People 4 Black Lives. WP4BL is a white anti-racist collective and activist project of the Alliance of White Anti-Racists Everywhere (AWARE-LA) and operates within a national network of white anti-racists called Showing Up for Racial Justice. WP4BL is rooted in acting in solidarity with Black Lives Matter: Los Angeles. Visit www.awarela.org and follow us @wp4bl.
