Los Angeles County prosecutors on Friday moved to drop manslaughter charges against two Torrance police officers who fatally shot a Black man in 2018. It was ending a seven-year case in which the case was dismissed and then retried by three different district attorneys.
Matthew Concannon and Anthony Chavez voted in favor of shooting and killing 23-year-old car theft suspect Christopher DeAndre Mitchell. Mitchell was in possession of an air rifle when he was killed.
Michael Genaco is a special prosecutor hired by the Federal Bureau of Investigation earlier this year. Atty. Nathan Hochman, who is reviewing the case, filed a motion to dismiss the charges late Thursday, saying he did not believe prosecutors could prove voluntary manslaughter at trial. In court Friday, lawyers for the officers said they had filed a joint motion based on the agreement.
But surprisingly, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Sam Ota declined to rule on the motion Friday, as the case is now under the jurisdiction of the California Supreme Court. Concannon’s lawyers had previously filed a writ of habeas corpus after Ota rejected a motion to dismiss the charges.
“I am not going to make a ruling on this because it would be inappropriate to make a ruling at this time. The Supreme Court will have to tell us its decision,” Ota said.
Matthew Murphy, one of Concannon’s attorneys, said he felt Ota was punishing the defendants for exercising their right to challenge his previous ruling. Ota dismissed that claim, pointing out that it was the defense team that brought the case to the California Supreme Court.
Ota indicated that he would not decide on the motion until the case is withdrawn by the Supreme Court, but even if it were, it would take time to consider the submissions.
Ota said he was “surprised” that the motion was filed at 3 p.m. Thursday, giving him little time to digest it before his court appearance at 8:30 a.m. Friday.
“It’s going to be a tough job. We’re not just going to verbally say, ‘Yes, please, please dismiss the case, the case is dismissed,'” the judge said.
Murphy said he would move to withdraw the habeas petition.
Chavez and Concannon were among those investigated in 2021 when the District Attorney’s Office discovered a thread of racist text messages sent by members of the Torrance Police Department. Although the Times has seen no evidence that either of the two officers sent racist messages, the scandal has infuriated community activists who have long called for them to be brought to justice for Mitchell’s murder.
Concannon’s civil attorney, Jeff Lewis, said his client “never sent or responded to any racist messages.”
The shooting occurred when officers approached Mitchell, who was sitting in his car in Ralph’s parking lot. They said they found what was later determined to be a “break barrel air rifle” between his legs.
According to the District Attorney’s Office, Concannon told authorities that he saw Mitchell reach for what he believed to be a real gun and fire. Chavez fired two shots shortly after. The two officers then retreated and waited for backup.
Nearly 30 minutes passed before anyone checked on Mitchell, who was later pronounced dead of a gunshot wound, according to court records.
Mr. Concannon and Mr. Chavez were initially cleared of all wrongdoing by then-Mr. Dist. Atty. Jackie Lacey. But in 2020, George Gascon took over the Police Accountability Platform and ousted Lacey, including in Mitchell’s death.
But Lawrence Middleton, the special prosecutor appointed by Gascón to review charges in the police shooting, was not indicted in the case until 2023, more than two years after he was appointed to review charges in the police shooting.
The statute of limitations for involuntary manslaughter, which is easier to prove than Mr. Middleton’s voluntary manslaughter charge, expired at the end of 2021. The case was filed immediately after he joined the public prosecutor’s office.
Mr. Middleton appeared in court Friday morning, sitting next to Mr. Mitchell’s mother and many of the activists who have monitored the trial over the years. All declined to comment.
According to grand jury documents, Middleton had previously argued that officers “created a risk that led to the shooting” by needlessly confronting Mitchell, even though he posed no threat and had no way of evading arrest because his car was parked against a wall. However, Ota denied that evidence after a hearing in late 2023. The shooting occurred in 2018, two years before California law changed the standard for determining the use of deadly force.
It comes on the heels of ousting Gascón in the 2024 election cycle, a move that drew praise from one of Concannon’s attorneys at the time. Jennaco was hired immediately. He also declined to comment on Ota’s refusal to rule on the motion for dismissal.
Hochman said in an interview that while he doesn’t believe the officers are “innocent,” he also doesn’t believe prosecutors can meet the legal standard needed to prove voluntary manslaughter. He said Gascon and Middleton botched the case.
Hockman questioned Middleton’s attempt to argue that the officers acted poorly in arresting Mitchell, creating a situation that required the use of deadly force.
Evidence of the so-called “officer-created danger” was deemed inadmissible by Mr. Ota last year.
Hockman said the evidence could have been admitted under California law changes passed in 2020 that lowered the standards for prosecuting police officers in deadly force cases, but it was not applied retroactively.
“These are difficult cases. The fact that they are difficult doesn’t mean they won’t be brought at the appropriate time,” Hochman said. “I probably spent hundreds of hours on the 12 seconds involved in this case.”
Hochman did not directly say whether he believed the officers should have been charged with manslaughter.
“What we’re saying is this is a potential charge for a grand jury to consider. We don’t know what the grand jury will decide,” he said. “That certainly would have been something to consider.”
Chavez is no longer employed by the Torrance Police Department. Mr. Concannon remains on leave. A spokesperson for the agency declined to comment.
In the 2021 scandal, The Times exposed messages filled with racial slurs and descriptions of violence against black men and members of the LGBTQ+ community.
In a series of messages, the officers joked about what would happen after Mr. Concannon and Chavez’s names were made public.
“If my name gets published, there’s going to be a gun sweep party at my house??” one of the officers asked, according to a summary of the text messages released in a 2022 court filing, which has redacted the name of the officer who sent the message.
“Yeah, definitely let’s all put lawn chairs in the garden and deploy a (shooting) squad,” said another.
In a letter to the Times, Lewis said Concannon “never participated in any text thread in which the N-word was used to describe Mr. Mitchell’s family.”
Mr. Concannon and Mr. Chavez are the last officers involved in the ongoing scandal.
Cody Weldin and Christopher Tomsic, whose criminal case led to scandalous revelations, were charged with criminal damage to property after they allegedly spray-painted a swastika on a car that was towed from the crime scene.
Another police officer investigated as part of the scandal, David Chandler, earlier this month pleaded no contest to assault charges for shooting a black suspect in the back. Mr. Chandler would ultimately have his case dismissed under the terms of the agreement.
All three officers had to waive their right to be peace officers in California under the terms of their plea agreements.
The Torrance Police Department and the California Attorney General’s Office initiated reforms earlier this year.
