Los Angeles County prosecutors moved to charge MansLugn against two police officers involved in two police shootings in 2018, trying to end a seven-year saga that saw the case covered up.
Matthew Concan and Anthony Chavez were indicted in 2023 for the death of Christopher Deanre Mitchell, a 23-year-old carjacking suspect who was armed with an air rifle when he was killed.
Michael Gennaco, a special prosecutor hired earlier this year by dist. Atty. Nathan Hochman reviewed the case and filed a motion to dismiss late Thursday, saying he did not believe prosecutors could demonstrate voluntary compliance. Lawyers for the police filed a plea agreement, they said in court on Friday.
But in a surprising move, Los Angeles County Superior Candler Sam Ohta declined to rule on Friday’s motion, because the case is currently before the California Supreme Court. Conbannon’s attorneys filed a writ of habea corpus after Ohta refused to move to dismiss the charges.
“I will not rule in this case because it was not appropriate for me to do so at this time. The supreme court must tell us its decision,” said Ohta.
One of Mathernon’s attorneys, Matthew Murphy, said he felt like Ohta was punishing the defendants for exercising their right to challenge Ohta’s previous decision. Ohta shot that argument down, pointing out that it was the defense team that brought the case before the California Supreme Court.
Ohta signaled that he wouldn’t decide to move until the case was heard in the Supreme Court, and even then, he would need time to review the filing.
Ohta said he was “surprised” that the motion was filed at 3 PM Thursday, giving him little time to grind before Friday’s 8:30 a.m. appearance.
“It will be a lot of work. I can’t just say yes, go ahead and dismiss this case, the case said,” said the judge.
Murphy said he will move to withdraw the habeas writ.
Chavez and Concanon were among those investigated in 2021 when the district attorney’s office discovered a string of racially charged text messages sent by members of the Torrance Police Department. The Times has not seen evidence that other officers sent racist messages, but angry Ashosos in the community have called for justice to be brought to justice for Mitchell’s murder.
Jeff Lewis, the attorney for the ConcanNon community, said his client “has not been sent or responded to any racist messages.”
The shooting happened when officers approached Mitchell while he was sitting in a car in the Ralph’s parking lot. They said they saw what was later revealed to be a “Barrel Air Rifle” between the legs.
ConCannon told authorities he saw Mitchell reach for what he believed to be a real gun and opened fire, according to the district attorney’s office. Chavez fired two rounds quickly from behind. The officers resumed waiting and waiting for backup.
About 30 minutes passed before anyone checked on Mitchell, who was pronounced dead from gunshot wounds, according to court records.
Conncannon and Chavez were initially cleared of all wrongdoing at the time. Atty. Jackie Lacey. But when George Gascón rose to office with a platform of police accountability and Lacey fired in 2020, he hired a special prosecutor to re-examine several cases that Lacey refused to prosecute, including the death of Mitchell.
But Lawrence Middleton, the special prosecutor who was brought down by SASCón, did not find fault in the case until 2023, more than two years after he was hired to rehire him by the police.
The voluntary statute of limitations, an easier to prove case than the voluntary employment brought by Middleton, expires in late 2021.
Middleton appeared in court Friday morning and sat alongside Mitchell’s mother and several activists who attended the hearing. All declined to comment.
Middleton had previously argued that officers “created a Jeopardy that led to the shooting,” by confronting Mitchell when he was threatened and did not break arrest as the car was parked against a wall, according to grand jury documents. But Ohta pleaded not guilty to this evidence after a hearing in late 2023. The shooting happened in 2018, two years before California law was changed to limit the use of deadly force.
Hochman expelled middleton not long after expelling the gascón in the 2024 electoral cycle, a move that drew praise from one of the ConcanNon lawyers at the time. Gennaco was hired a short time later. He also declined to comment on Ohta’s refusal to rule on the dismissal.
In an interview, Hochman said that while he didn’t believe the officers were ‘innocent’ he also didn’t think prosecutors could meet the legal bar necessary to prove the sighting was voluntary. He said Gascón and Middleton are guilty.
Hochman questioned Middleton’s efforts to argue that the police executed Mitchell’s arrest so well that they created a situation requiring the use of deadly force.
That evidence called “Officer-Wadment Jeopardy” was deemed unavailable by OHTA last year.
The evidence might have been admitted under a change in California law in 2020, which lowered the standard for charging capital murders that have already been felony charges, but it didn’t work again, Hochman said.
“These are serious cases. The fact that they are serious does not mean that we will not bring them to justice,” said Hochman. “I would say it’s possible that we could have used hundreds of hours of the 12 seconds that were available in this case.”
Hochman would not say specifically if he believed the officers should be charged with voluntary misconduct.
“What we’re saying is that this would have been a potential grand jury charge to consider. I can’t tell you how the grand jury would have come out,” he said. “It would certainly be something that would be considered.”
Chavez no longer works for the river police department. ConCannon remains on administrative leave. A spokeswoman for the agency declined to comment.
In the year 2021, the times revealed messages that were full of racial slurs and descriptions of violence against black men and members of the LGBTQ + community.
In one part of the messages, officials used the N-word to describe Mitchell’s relatives and postponed what would happen after Chavez’s concanons and names were made public.
“The gun cleaning crew at my house when they released my name? One officer asked, according to a summary of the text messages made public in a 2022 court filing, which listed the names of the officers who sent the messages.
“Yes, let’s send everything to your yard with Lawn Chairs [firing] squad,” replied another.
Lewis said in a letter to the Times that it was not part of any thread where the N-word was used to describe Mitchell’s family. “
Conncannon and Chavez are the last officers connected to the cases with pending charges.
Cody Weldin and Christopher Tomsic – whose criminal case led to the revelation of the gate – attacked the request earlier this year in the cases of the protection of the swastika in the car arrested at the scene.
David Chandler, another case investigated as part of the scandal, pleaded guilty earlier this month to charges of shooting a black suspect in the back. Chandler will eventually see his case dismissed under the terms of the plea agreement.
All three of these vacationers had to give up their rights to be Peature Pealie in California under the terms of their sales claims.
The Torrance Police Department and the California general office entered into a “workable” reform agreement earlier this year.
