The texts are extraordinarily violent in nature and grotesquely racist, homophobic, and antisemitic.
In line with reporting from the LA Occasions, one textual content exhibits an image of a sweet cane, a Christmas tree decoration, a star for the highest of the tree, and an “enslaved particular person.”
“Which one doesn’t belong?” the caption asks.
“You don’t grasp the star,” somebody replies.
One other message reads “hanging with the homies,” connected was a photograph of a number of Black males who had been lynched.
One other picture asks what somebody would do if their girlfriend was having an affair with a Black man. The captioned response was to interrupt “a tail mild on his automotive so the police will cease him and shoot him.”
Prosecutors say the messages return years and may jeopardize a whole lot of prison instances through which the officers both testified or made arrests.
The LA Occasions recognized 13 present and former law enforcement officials and one Lengthy Seashore cop who at the moment are underneath investigation. Not less than 9 of the officers texted photos or commentary advocating violence in opposition to Black folks and LGBTQ group members and ridiculing racial profiling. Fifteen officers are on administrative go away, Sgt. Mark Ponegalek, a Torrance police spokesman, informed the LA Occasions.
The investigation started whereas exploring prison prices in opposition to two former Torrance law enforcement officials charged with spray-painting a swastika inside a resident’s automotive in January 2020.
Ex-cops Cody Weldin, 28, and Christopher Tomsic, 29, had been every charged with conspiracy and vandalism.
The newly discovered secret messages left no marginalized group out. Texts included jokes about “gassing” Jews, beating LGBTQ of us, and mendacity throughout investigations into police taking pictures, in keeping with district lawyer’s workplace data reviewed by the LA Occasions.
Principally the texts had been targeted on Black folks, calling Black males “savages,” utilizing the N-word, and one through which officers shared directions on learn how to tie a noose.
The texts have led to the dismissal of at the least 85 instances involving officers who had been connected to the messages. In whole, the officers concerned are tied to just about 1,400 instances within the final decade.
“In order that may very well be, for instance, a single police officer is in a patrol automotive and sees a person on the sidewalk after which says he had a bulge in his pocket after which pats him down after which recovers a gun,” Diana Teran, a particular adviser to Los Angeles County District Lawyer George Gascón, informed the LA Occasions. “With out that officer, you couldn’t show that case.”
Torrance Police have employed an outdoor regulation agency to moreover evaluation the case of the textual content messages. Chief Jeremiah Hart requested the lawyer normal’s workplace for help after the repugnant messages had been found.
“I’m dedicated to accountability, and I cannot tolerate any type of bigotry, racism, hate, or misconduct,” Hart stated in a press release.
The textual content messages return to 2013, and a number of other of the officers concerned are linked to at the least seven severe use of power incidents in Torrance and Lengthy Seashore, three of which concerned the deaths of Black or Latino males.
“What these textual content messages revealed was an awfully hostile perspective towards folks of coloration, people who find themselves nonbinary, individuals who have totally different sexual orientations,” Walter Katz, a former unbiased police auditor in California who now serves as a vice chairman of prison justice for analysis agency Arnold Ventures, informed the LA Occasions. “I don’t know that we are able to take something they’ve stated at face worth.”
