A Los Angeles Superior Court judge on Friday rejected a defense effort. Murder indictment filed against two former Torrance police officers In 2018 a young black man was shot and killed with an air rifle while sitting in a suspected stolen car.
Judge Sam Ohta declined to dismiss the March 2023 indictment against Matthew Concannon and Anthony Chavez on one count each of voluntary manslaughter in the fatal shooting of Christopher Deandre Mitchell, 23.
The 36-page decision followed more than a year of arguments in the only case filed by the special prosecutor — Lawrence Middleton, who was appointed by District Attorney George Gascón to prosecute the case. review police shootings His predecessor had declined to prosecute.
On Dec. 9, 2018, Concannon and Chavez encountered Mitchell in a Ralph’s parking lot in Torrance while responding to a report of a man driving a stolen car. They surrounded the car with their cars and approached the vehicle, without calling for backup or waiting for other officers. Concannon’s body camera showed that he opened the driver’s door as they approached the car.
Body cam video showed that officers initially told Mitchell, “Don’t move, don’t move,” and then repeatedly ordered him out of the car, but he did not comply.
Concannon said in the police report that when he and his partner approached, they saw Mitchell’s hands moving toward his lap, and they saw what they believed to be a firearm.
The two officers then shot Mitchell at close range, killing him.
According to the district attorney’s office report, the couple reported that the weapon they saw — later identified as a “break-barrel air rifle” — was “stuck” between Mitchell’s legs. Body cam video shows this when Concannon shines his flashlight on Mitchell’s body.
Ohta said he disagreed with Chavez’s attorneys’ argument that there was no probable cause to indict, saying Middleton Evidence presented before the grand jury Chavez shot Mitchell as a result of “contagious fire”.
The judge said it was not his job to determine factual disputes over the evidence, as that is the grand jury’s job.
“The People presented sufficient evidence to the grand jury to conclude that defendant Chavez was involved in the infectious disease,” he said.
Christopher DeAndre Mitchell was 23 when he was shot and killed by Torrance police.
(Courtesy of Peter Carr)
Ohta also rejected the defense’s argument that the special prosecutor based his entire case on the threat posed by the officer, the notion that the two policemen used improper tactics that created the situation that led to the shooting. Defense lawyers argued that California did not enact a law requiring such circumstances until after the shooting, and the law cannot be applied retroactively.
But Ohta said this “irrelevant evidence” was only a portion of the presentation to the grand jury and that Middleton focused primarily on the interactions between the officers and Mitchell, while “the majority of the closing statement focused on relevant and material evidence.”
The California Peace Officer Standards and Training Commission has temporarily suspended Chavez and Concannon, meaning they cannot work as police officers.
both were connected to each other Controversy over bigotry An investigation within the Torrance Police Department revealed that about 15 officers had shot approximately 390 Racist, sexist, or homophobic text messages From 2018 to 2020.
Although the Times never found evidence that Concannon or Chavez sent any of the messages, they both were also investigated in the scandal, according to documents previously reviewed by the newspaper and sources who spoke on condition of anonymity.
After his ruling, Ohta informed defense attorneys that they could file a writ of appeal — a process that would likely delay the trial proceedings.
The legal dispute is the latest in the killing of Mitchell, whose death sparked protests by the Los Angeles chapter of Black Lives Matter.
former District Attorney Jackie Lacey The case became the subject of a protest after his staff attorneys decided not to prosecute Concannon and Chavez in 2019. The case became one of four that special prosecutor Middleton reopened after he was appointed by Gascón, who was chosen as Lacey’s successor in 2020. However, the case has become Middleton’s only prosecution, despite the county spending hundreds of thousands of dollars for his services.
by announcing Indictments against Concannon and Chávez in 2023, Gascón questioned “whether the officers were able to see the gun prior to the shooting.”
Both officers denied the allegations, saying they saw Mitchell pull a gun out from between his legs. Concannon and Chavez are free on bail and face a maximum of 11 years in prison if convicted.
Lawyers for the officers have insisted that Lacey was correct in deciding that her office deemed the shootings lawful.
“Based on Mitchell’s failure to comply with officers’ instructions, her continued attempts to conceal the object in her lap, the physical presence of the object, and the movement of her hands toward the object, it was reasonable for officers to believe the object was a firearm and to respond with deadly force,” prosecutors wrote in 2019.
But in presentations to the grand jury, Middleton argued that the officers’ tactics made the shooting “unavoidable,” saying they did not call for backup, did not wait for other officers, approached the car without cover, and did not look at the air gun before opening fire.
In seeking to dismiss the indictment, defense lawyers pointed to a Supreme Court ruling that said deadly force can be used only if a reasonable officer in the situation would conclude that life or serious bodily injury was in danger.
Chavez’s attorney, Tom Yu, and Concannon’s attorney, Lisa Houle, also alleged there were procedural violations with the exculpatory evidence, such as not showing grand jurors a redacted video of the air gun placed on Mitchell’s lap.
Ohta said he saw no difference in the key moment in the redacted video, and the defense believes other evidence should have been presented that would not have changed the decision to indict.
Defense lawyers said “the entire prosecution is outrageous.”
“These officers were cleared of all wrongdoing in 2019,” said Hawley and co-counsel Matt Murphy. “You can’t correct past injustices by committing new ones, which is what George Gascón is doing here.”
