Torrance Police Department

If the Torrance Police Department has arrested or is investigating a family member, you or a loved one, it is common to need to know the bail amount (if any) associated with the offense (if an own recognizance (OR) release is denied), the evidence needed to convict one for the crime that allegedly took place, the defenses possible and the sentence a judge can impose if one is convicted of the crime. 

We at Greg Hill & Associates believe it is also valuable to know a few more things before interacting with any branch of law enforcement.  It can be helpful to know the size of the police or sheriff’s department, the city’s general demographics, the most common types of crime the department investigates and just a bit about the city’s history to make one’s communication with law enforcement more meaningful, more savvy and perhaps, more respectful.  This can lead to an improved outcome than if one lacks such perspective.

This article is presented with this goal in mind.

The Torrance police department is staffed by 227 sworn police officers and 128 non-sworn, civilian staff personnel, making the Torrance Police Department one of the largest police departments in Los Angeles County.   The City of Torrance had a population of 147,067 as of 2020, spread out over 20.53 square miles. 

The Torrance Police Department has jurisdiction in the city limits of Torrance. Other sections with a "Torrance, CA" address are served by either the Los Angeles Police Department (the Harbor Gateway area east of Western Avenue) or the Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department in an unincorporated area adjacent to the I-110 Harbor Freeway with the ZIP code of 90502.  Both areas are easily identified by their Los Angeles County-styled street signage.  The Torrance Police Department also patrols an approximate one mile area of Torrance Beach.

Officers carry the Glock 21 .45 caliber Auto as the primary sidearm and the holster of choice is made and produced by Safariland.

 
In the 2015 film “Straight Outa Compton,” members of the Torrance Police Department harass members of N.W. A.

In 2021, an investigation into the Torrance Police Department found that at least 18 current and former police officers and recruits were involved in an exchange of racist and homophobic texts that promoted violence and police brutality against various people, including those who were Black, Jewish, or LGBTQ.

According to the Los Angeles Times, the officers connected to the texting scandal were involved in at least seven use of force incidents since 2013, of which three resulted in the death of a Black or Latino person.  Anthony Chavez and Matthew Concannon, the two officers involved in the scandal, were initially cleared of any wrongdoing by Los Angeles County District Attorney Jackie Lacey for the 2018 fatal shooting of Christopher DeAndre Mitchell, a Black man who was holding an air rifle at the time of the shooting.  However, upon taking office in 2020, Lacey's successor, George Gascon, reopened the case against Chavez and Concannon.  By April 13, 2023, the two officers were indicted for the shooting.

Two more officers involved in the scandal, Cody Weldin and Christopher Tomsic, were fired by the department and charged by the district attorney's office in 2020 for their part in a vandalism of a Jewish suspect's car, Kiley Swaine.  Mr. Swaine and two of his friends were arrested by Weldin and Tomsic in January 2020 for suspected mail theft.  After being released, Swaine retrieved his car at a tow yard, finding it trashed with cereal and protein powder and a swastika spray-painted on one of the back seats.  In March 2023, Swaine won a $750,000 settlement in a lawsuit against the City of Torrance and the two officers.

The racial makeup of Torrance in 2010, as of the census that year, was 51.1% White (42.3% Non-Hispanic White), 34.5% Asian, 2.7% African American, and 16.1% Latino or Hispanic.

As of March 2019, Torrance had a median household income of $85,070 and a median family income of $102,637.

The Del Amo Fashion Center, at 2.5 million square feet, is one of the five largest malls in the United States by gross leasable area.  The current mall was created when Del Amo Center, built in 1958, merged with Del Amo Fashion Square, built in 1972.  Once located on opposite sides of Carson Street, an expansion of the mall spanning Carson Street joined the two centers by 1982, making it the largest mall in the world at the time.

Torrance has the second-highest percentage of residents of Japanese ancestry in California (8.9%), after the neighboring city of Gardena.  As of 2014, Torrance had the second-largest concentration of people of Japanese ancestry of any U.S. city, after Honolulu.

Our office is located in Torrance and we appear most often in the Torrance Superior Court, so it is fair to say we are most familiar with the Torrance Police Department and the criminal court judges and Torrance City Prosecutors, as compared to other judges in other courthouse and the city prosecutors in other cities.  We have also taken the most cases to jury trial in Torrance Superior Court, so we are familiar with how juries tend to rule on certain types of cases.

Greg Hill often has as many as five cases in one day in the Torrance Superior Court.

We have handled all types of cases arising out of Torrance over the last 25 years, from murder and attempted murder, to serious sex offenses such as rape and child molestation, to much more minor cases such as misdemeanor DUI’s and public intoxication, public urination and even prostitution (yes, even in Torrance).

For more information about being arrested and possibly facing a criminal case, please click on the following articles:

Below is the Google Map to the Torrance Police Department.