Taped Incident Prompts Public Criticism : Torrance Police Feel Backlash of Beating

When a Torrance police officer stopped a motorist this week for a traffic violation, the driver asked: “Are you going to write me a ticket or are you going to beat me?”

The verbal barb, recalled by a police watch commander, was just one example of the wave of criticism that has hit the Torrance Police Department and City Hall since local and network news programs broadcast a videotape last week of a Torrance police officer choking a 20-year-old man while another officer hit him with a night stick.

Switchboard operators at the Police Department received more than 200 complaints in the three days after the tape was shown on news programs Sept. 22. Another 34 calls and 10 letters have been received in the offices of the mayor and city manager, operators said.

Telephone callers from around the country and even from Canada have demanded that officers James Lynch and Ross Bartlett be fired.

In daily briefings, officers have been instructed to be prepared for criticism on the beat and have been told to prepare their families for insults.

The complaints have been disturbing to officials in a city that prides itself on operating smoothly and with little public criticism.

“People were incensed and angered by what they saw on the tape,” said Mayor Katy Geissert. “It’s not the type of recognition we want in the city. It’s certainly not the image we want to project.”

But Geissert added that it is too early to judge the actions of officers Lynch and Bartlett when they arrested Thomas Tice, 20, last May, while the officers broke up a party.

Tice and five friends filed a civil rights lawsuit against the officers, the city and Police Chief Donald Nash in U.S. District Court. The videotape shows Lynch holding Tice in a chokehold, apparently until he lost consciousness, while Bartlett hit him eight times with a night stick in the back, spine and behind the knees.

Since the release of the videotape, filmed by a friend of Tice’s, Torrance police officers have been the object of glares and obscene gestures, said Lt. Robert Armstrong, head of the department’s personnel division.

“The police on the beat have been taking the brunt of it,” Armstrong said. “It’s pretty tough out there.”

One officer, who asked not to be named, said: “My feeling, and I’m sure for a lot of other people around here, is low morale because of all the negative publicity.”

Police officials said they are frustrated because department policy prohibits them from revealing other facts about the case before the conclusion of an internal investigation.

Speaking of the warnings given officers at daily briefings, Lt. Noel Cobbs, a watch commander, said: “We try to get them aware that they will get comments and not to be baited into making a comment back. All we can tell the public is that we are investigating.”

Officers have also been told to prepare their families for insults.

Telephone callers have demanded that Lynch and Bartlett be dismissed, said one police operator. Calls and letters to City Hall made the same demand, Geissert said.

Councilman Dan Walker said that the videotape will be a continuing topic of debate. “It will probably be the most looked-at situation that our Police Department has encountered in the last 25 years,” he said.