A Los Angeles Superior Court judge on Friday rejected a defense effort to dismiss a manslaughter charge against two former Torrance police officers in the 2018 fatal shooting of a young black man sitting in a suspected stolen car with an air rifle.
Judge Sam Ohta declined to dismiss the March 2023 indictment against Matthew Concannon and Anthony Chavez on one count of voluntary manslaughter in the fatal shooting of 23-year-old Christopher Deandre Mitchell.
The 36-page decision follows more than a year of arguments in the only case filed by a special prosecutor — Lawrence Middleton, who was hired by District Attorney George Gascón to review police shootings that his predecessor had declined to prosecute.
On December 9, 2018, Concannon and Chavez, responding to reports of a man driving a stolen vehicle, encountered Mitchell in the parking lot of a Ralph’s in Torrance. They blocked the car with their own and, without calling for backup or waiting for other officers, approached the vehicle. Concannon’s body camera showed that he had opened the driver’s door when they reached the car.
Officers first told Mitchell, “Don’t move, don’t move,” and then repeatedly ordered him to get out of the car, but he did not comply, body camera video showed.
Concannon said in police reports that as he and his partner approached, they noticed Mitchell’s hands move toward his knees and he saw what he believed to be a gun.
The two officers then shot Mitchell at point-blank range, killing him.
According to a report from the district attorney’s office, both men described the weapon they saw — later identified as a “break-action air rifle” — as being “stuck” between Mitchell’s legs. It can be seen in the body camera video as Concannon shines his flashlight on Mitchell’s body.
Ohta said he disagreed with Chavez’s attorneys’ argument that there was no probable cause to charge, noting that Middleton had presented evidence to the grand jury that Chavez shot Mitchell following a “contagious fire.”
The judge said factual disputes over the evidence were not his business, as that was the role of the grand jury.
“The individuals presented sufficient evidence for the grand jury to conclude that there was a strong suspicion that defendant Chavez engaged in contagious shootings,” he said.
Christopher Deandre Mitchell was 23 when Torrance police shot him.
(Courtesy of Peter Carr)
Ohta also rejected the defense’s argument that the special prosecutor built his entire case on the danger created by the officers, the perception that the two officers used bad tactics that created the situation that led to the shooting. California did not enact a law requiring such circumstances before the shooting, and the law could not be applied retroactively, defense attorneys argued.
But Ohta said that “irrelevant evidence” was only part of the grand jury presentation and that Middleton focused primarily on the interaction between the officers and Mitchell, while “the majority of the closing statement focused on relevant, 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.
The two men have been linked to a bigotry scandal within the Torrance Police Department after an investigation found that about 15 officers sent about 390 racist, sexist or homophobic text messages from 2018 to 2020.
Although the Times never found evidence that Concannon or Chavez sent any of the messages, both were among those investigated in the scandal, according to documents previously reviewed by the newspaper and sources who spoke on condition of anonymity.
After his decision, Ohta informed defense lawyers that they could appeal, a procedure that would likely delay the trial.
The legal wrangling is the latest in the killing of Mitchell, whose death sparked protests by the Los Angeles chapter of Black Lives Matter.
Former District Attorney Jackie Lacey faced protests after her attorneys decided in 2019 not to prosecute Concannon and Chavez. The case became one of four that Special Prosecutor Middleton reopened after he was hired by Gascón, who was elected in 2020 as Lacey’s successor. The case, however, became Middleton’s only prosecution, though the county spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on his services.
In announcing the indictment against Concannon and Chavez in 2023, Gascón questioned “whether the officers could have seen the gun before the shooting.”
Both officers have pleaded not guilty to the charges, saying they saw Mitchell reach between his legs for a gun. Concannon and Chavez remain free on bail, each facing a maximum sentence of 11 years in prison if convicted.
The officers’ lawyers insisted that Lacey was right when his office ruled the shooting was legal.
“Given Mitchell’s failure to follow officers’ instructions, his continued efforts to conceal the object in his lap, the physical appearance of the object, and the movement of his hands toward the object, it was reasonable for officers to believe the object was a firearm and respond with deadly force,” prosecutors wrote in 2019.
But in a presentation to the grand jury, Middleton argued that the officers’ tactics made the shooting “inevitable,” saying they failed to call for backup, failed to wait for other officers, approached the car without any cover and failed to see the air pistol before opening fire.
In an attempt to dismiss the indictment, defense attorneys pointed to the Supreme Court’s decision that deadly force is authorized if a reasonable officer in the same situation would conclude there is a threat to life or serious bodily harm.
Chavez’s attorney Tom Yu and Concannon’s attorney Lisa Houlé also alleged there were procedural violations with exculpatory evidence, such as failing to show grand jurors enhanced video of the air gun in Mitchell’s lap.
Ohta said he saw no difference in the key moment in the enhanced video, and that other evidence the defense believed should be presented would not have changed the decision to charge.
Defense lawyers said “the whole prosecution is outrageous.”
“These officers were cleared of any wrongdoing in 2019,” Houlé and his co-counsel Matt Murphy said. “You don’t fix past wrongs by creating new ones, which is exactly what George Gascón is doing here.”
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