Los Angeles Township Atty. Nathan Hockman says he intends to terminate the contract with the special prosecutor hired by George Gascón to reopen the investigation into the police shooting, a move that has sparked controversy among police officers. could shake up a high-profile case involving the murder of a man.
The district attorney’s office said in a statement that it would “no longer utilize” the services of Lawrence Middleton, the former federal prosecutor who acquitted several Los Angeles police officers of Rodney King’s civil rights violations in 1991. The beating of a black driver.
Middleton was brought in by a former Distorian. Atty. In 2021, the city of Gascon will reconsider charges related to four separate shootings committed by a former school superintendent. Atty. Jackie Lacey’s government declined to prosecute. Middleton’s contract expires in June, but Hockman has “options” to terminate it early and is in discussions with the county attorney to do so, the district attorney’s office said.
Mr. Middleton declined to comment. It is unclear whether Mr. Hochman or other administration officials have contacted Mr. Middleton or when he will be formally removed as special counsel. The cases he was considering will now be handled by the Judicial System Integrity Unit, a division of the district attorney’s office that typically prosecutes cases of misconduct by police and lawyers.
Middleton’s hiring is meant to fulfill Gascón’s campaign promise to improve police accountability within prosecutors, which had rarely, if ever, prosecuted police officers for on-duty shootings before the election. It was an early attempt at But it also contributed to heightened tensions between Mr. Gascón and his affiliated prosecutors. They were dissatisfied with the idea that their decisions could be overturned by outsiders. The amount of money the county plans to spend on independent investigators added to the tension. Some derided the veteran prosecutor as a “billionaire Middleton.”
Records show Middleton billed the county for just over $1 million between June 2021 and October 2024. The average annual salary for a Los Angeles County prosecutor is about $135,000, according to the Assn. of the assistant district attorney. A county spokeswoman said Middleton’s salary came directly from the district attorney’s office budget.
Gascón did not respond to requests for comment.
The former district attorney initially ordered Mr. Middleton to review four cases. One was the death of Hector Morejon, an unarmed Long Beach police officer who was shot in the back in 2015 while responding to a trespassing call. In 2015, an unarmed homeless man, Brendon Glenn, was shot and killed by a Los Angeles Police Department police officer in Venice Beach. The 2013 shooting of Ricardo Diaz Zeferino by Gardena police. and the 2018 murder of Christopher DeAndre Mitchell by Torrance police.
Mr. Middleton has struggled to get these cases into court. Police are far more likely to be convicted of manslaughter than murder in the line of duty, and three of the four shootings Middleton was scheduled to consider before his appointment were misdemeanors. The statute of limitations had expired or was nearing its expiration. In June 2021.
Last year, a grand jury indicted Matthew Concannon and Anthony Chavez on charges of manslaughter in Mitchell’s death. Mitchell was sitting in a stolen car in a Ralph’s parking lot in Torrance in December 2018 when Concannon and Chavez approached him, prosecutors said. Officers ordered the man out of the vehicle and believed a firearm (later determined to be a break-barrel air rifle) was visible between the man’s legs as he fired shots. Both officers maintained that Mitchell did not grab a weapon or point the gun at them before he started shooting.
The case has been ongoing for more than a year, with no trial date in sight. In August, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Sam Ohta denied a motion to dismiss the charges due to legal deficiencies.
According to the grand jury report, Middleton unnecessarily confronted the officers even though he posed no threat to Mitchell and had no way of escaping arrest because his car was parked against a wall. “This created a risk that could lead to a shooting,” he said. Lawyers for the officers argued that Middleton was using a “novel theory” and was confusing the crime with a potential violation of department policy.
The move to fire Mr. Hochman as special counsel was not surprising (he had frequently criticized Mr. Gascón over his hiring during the campaign), but it did not come as a surprise to police accountability advocates and supporters of Mr. Mitchell’s family. They were furious.
“Former District Attorney George Gascon’s appointment of Lawrence Middleton as special prosecutor marks an important step toward police accountability,” said Black Lives Matter Los Angeles co-founder. said Melina Abdullah. “Prosecutor Hochman’s firing of Middleton essentially gave the police a license to murder our citizens and corrupt them as much as possible with absolute impunity.”
Mr Concannon’s lawyer Lisa Hall celebrated the news.
“We are not at all surprised by this, and no one will be surprised once the public learns the true details of this case and the outrageous manner in which the Gascón government has treated our client.” “I think so,” she said, without providing further details.
Hall said Concannon remains on administrative leave and Chavez is no longer a police officer. Both men were among 15 officers involved in the Torrance Police Department’s racist text message scandal. The Times found no evidence that Mr. Concannon and Mr. Chavez sent racist messages, but multiple sources and documents say they were part of a text thread and part of the scandal. It has been confirmed that the company is currently being investigated.
In October, the Times reported that Los Angeles County authorities had obtained an arrest warrant for Clifford Proctor, the former LAPD officer who shot and killed Glenn in Venice in 2015. Neither Mr. Middleton nor the district attorney’s office has commented on the case, which was being reviewed by a special prosecutor. Sources told the Times that Proctor is expected to be arrested in connection with Glenn’s death.
No criminal charges have been filed and Mr. Proctor has not appeared in court. The only other way an arrest warrant could be triggered would be to obtain an indictment, as Mr. Middleton did in the only case brought to court during his tenure. Attempts to contact Proctor were unsuccessful.
Miriam Krinsky, a former federal prosecutor and founder of Fair and Just Prosecution, a nonprofit that advocates for criminal justice reform, said Middleton’s case declined to be prosecuted under the Lacey administration. He said he was concerned about the matter being returned to the jurisdiction of the investigative division that had previously held it. She said terminating Middleton’s contract so quickly could set off alarm bells, given Hochman’s close ties to law enforcement.
“He faces the challenge of reassuring the community that he intends to be accountable on these issues and to run his administration in a way that is not tainted by the donations that helped get him elected.” she said. Mr. Hochman received millions of dollars in financial aid from law enforcement unions during his campaign.
Laurie Levenson, a former federal prosecutor who teaches at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, said that while Hochman has first-hand experience prosecuting police, Gascón lacks that, so outside experts are needed. said it was not necessary. She also questioned the return on investment county taxpayers are getting from Middleton’s work.
“Mr. Hockman feels comfortable that he has the experience and that he has someone in his office that he can probably rely on to provide him with appropriate guidance,” she said. “Money numbers and spending are important. He’s probably coming in and looking at the budget. Hiring outside experts is often one of the first areas to be revisited and cut. It’s one.”
