Critics of Torrance Police Seek Review Unit

Attempting to keep a spotlight on brutality allegations against Torrance police, a dozen people--including four who are suing the city--asked the City Council Tuesday to set up a civilian review board to investigate charges of police misconduct.

The gathering, which drew three television crews and several newspaper reporters and prompted city officials to station a dozen police officers in council chambers, was termed “a staged media event” by Mayor Katy Geissert.

She added the city staff would study the request.

The group asked the city to review the guidelines that police follow when using deadly force. Referring to a recent hanging death in the city jail, they also asked that the city jail cells be more closely monitored.

“I just want justice,” said Darrick Tucker, 20, a plaintiff in a police brutality suit against the city.

Tucker, along with Clifford S. Shirk Jr., 26, who also spoke in favor of a civilian review board, and four other men allege in a $3-million suit filed in September that they were attacked by Torrance police, first at a party in May and then after they were taken to the Police Department jail.

National Publicity

A videotape of the incident, which was aired on television nationwide, shows a Torrance officer choking a man while his partner beats the man with a night stick. The two officers, James Lynch and Ross Bartlett, have been suspended with pay, pending an investigation by the Police Department and the district attorney’s office.

Donald McCauley, who claims his 27-year-old son, Timothy, was beaten in a Torrance jail cell before he hanged himself in August, also said a civilian review board is needed and asked the council to explain city policy on police use of deadly force.

“We do not condone excessive force,” said Geissert, before she was advised by City Atty. Stanley Remelmeyer not to speak on the matter because of pending litigation.

The Los Angeles County Coroner’s Office, which conducted an autopsy on McCauley, said he had committed suicide and that he had not been beaten.

Michael Sandoval, 31, who has charged in a $250,000 suit that he was abused and harassed on seven occasions in late 1987, told the council: “Whether a person is a criminal or not, if he is not resisting an officer or threatening an officer, he doesn’t deserve to have force put on him.”

After the meeting, Sandoval said the council was partly to blame for the alleged abuse cases because it failed to rigorously investigate abuse charges. Sandoval said he was referring to Officer Lynch, who along with Officers Chester Pitts and Albert Kramer, was accused in the suit of beating and threatening Sandoval over a 2-month period last year.

Lynch was fired seven years ago for what Police Chief Donald Nash at the time called a “propensity toward overaggressive behavior,” but he was rehired nine months later by the City Council.

After the meeting, Sandoval said he is not surprised that the council did not take action on their inquiries. “They just wanted to get on with regular business,” he said. “But they have to do something because these things tend to snowball.”

The group’s appearance was organized by Don Jackson, a Hawthorne police officer and an activist against police misconduct.

“These people are not pleased with the way the Police Department is run,” Jackson told the council. “They want to know what the council feels. They want to know why the council has remained silent.”

Jackson also accused the council of trying to intimidate members of his group by having police officers surround the council chambers before and during the meeting.

“They seem to be waiting for something to happen,” he said. “One person couldn’t speak because the police scared her.”

Geissert said after the meeting that the police were called because she had heard a radio station report that a demonstration was to take place during the meeting. “I didn’t know what to expect,” she said.

Asked if the police officers might have intimidated some people, Councilman Dan Walker said: “Dumb question.” He did not elaborate.

Councilman Bill Applegate, who did not address the complaints during the meeting, asserted afterward that a review board is not necessary because the city’s Civil Service Commission performs that function.