Torrance Police Cleared in Assault Case, Jail Hanging

The Torrance Police Department and two police officers have been cleared of criminal wrongdoing in two highly publicized incidents of alleged police brutality last year.

The Los Angeles County district attorney’s office announced Friday that it will not charge Torrance police officers James Lynch and Ross Bartlett with assault in connection with an incident last May in which they were videotaped as they choked and beat a 20-year-old man into unconsciousness.

County prosecutors also announced that there is no evidence to charge anyone in the Police Department in connection with the death of Timothy McCauley, 27, who was found hanged in a cell at the Torrance Jail last August. The death was a suicide, the district attorney’s office said.

The Police Department was “pleased” with the announcements, spokesman Ron Traber said Friday. He declined further comment, citing lawsuits that are pending against the city in both cases.

Rowdy Party

The videotaped incident involving officers Bartlett and Lynch occurred when they arrested Thomas Tice at a rowdy party May 15. Tice and five friends later pleaded no contest to charges of disturbing the peace and paid $200 fines.

The videotape, taken by a guest at the party, showed Lynch holding Tice around the neck as Bartlett hit him eight times with a night stick. Lynch continued to apply the choke hold, and Bartlett to swing the night stick, even after Tice’s body went limp, the pictures showed.

But Assistant Dist. Atty. Curt Livesay said there was not enough evidence to prove that Lynch and Bartlett intentionally continued to apply force after Tice lapsed into unconsciousness. The officers may not have realized that Tice was already under control because they were distracted by Tice’s friends, who screamed obscenities and threats, Livesay said.

Hugh Manes, Tice’s attorney, said he is “livid” that the district attorney will not prosecute. He said the decision signals that “it is tolerable for the Torrance Police Department and other departments to use this type of excessive force. It’s just an outrage.”

The decision not to charge the officers concludes a seven-month investigation by the district attorney’s office that began after Tice and five of his friends filed a federal civil rights lawsuit charging that they were brutalized by members of the Torrance Police Department.

The confrontation between the police officers and about 40 young people occurred at a house in North Torrance after Lynch and Bartlett responded to a report that a man playing in a band at the party had been injured in a fight.

‘A Mob Mentality’

The lawsuit alleges that the six men were roughed up by police both at the party and later at the Torrance Jail. They said the attacks were unprovoked.

But a report by the district attorney’s office says that the crowd failed to obey police orders and that Bartlett and Lynch were “attempting to discharge their duties to keep the public peace. . . “ The evidence shows “a hostile, unruly, aggressive crowd, fueled by a mob mentality and the consumption of alcohol,” the report says.

“The situation was unpredictable and potentially explosive and unquestionably dangerous,” the report concluded. “No trier of fact would convict officers who conducted themselves as these two did under these circumstances.”

In the other case, the district attorney’s office concluded that Timothy McCauley hanged himself last year at the Torrance Jail.

McCauley’s parents charged in a lawsuit filed after his death Aug. 11 that the police either hanged their son, or beat him so badly that he became despondent and killed himself.

Torrance police said that the muscular construction worker tried to run over a motorcycle officer who stopped him for speeding. McCauley then fled, crashing several blocks away after a high-speed chase, police said.

The county coroner’s office ruled his death a suicide and said that other injuries, including a sprained shoulder and abrasions, were probably caused in the traffic accident.

The district attorney’s office concurred.

A letter to Police Chief Donald Nash, approved by Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner, said “there is no evidence that members of your department engaged in criminal wrongdoing in connection with his death.”