Judge won’t dismiss manslaughter case against two Torrance police officers
LA TimesChristopher Deandre Mitchell’s mother, Sherlyn Haynes, center, speaks out at Torrance City Hall in 2019 after police fatally shot her son. A Los Angeles superior court judge rejected a defense effort on Friday to dismiss a manslaughter indictment against two former Torrance police officers in the 2018 shooting death of a young Black man sitting in a suspected stolen car with an air rifle. The officers initially told Mitchell, “Don’t move, don’t move,” and then repeatedly ordered him out of the car, but he did not comply, body cam video showed. Ohta said he disagreed with Chavez’s lawyers’ argument that there was a lack of probable cause to indict, noting that Middleton had presented evidence to the grand jury that Chavez shot Mitchell as a result of “contagious fire.” The judge said factual disputes over the evidence were not for him to determine, as that was the grand jury’s role. But Ohta said that this “irrelevant evidence” made up only part of the presentation to the grand jury and that Middleton focused mainly on the interaction between the officers and Mitchell, while “the majority of the closing statement focused on relevant and material evidence.” Chavez and Concannon have been temporarily suspended by the California Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training, meaning they cannot work as police officers.
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