Aryeh Cohen Pulls Back the Curtain on the Torrance PD

Minneapolis MN

13 December, 2021

4:10 AM

Description

Racism and hatred continue to be a major problem with police departments throughout the country. Just last year, Aryeh Cohen wrote about two former officers with the Torrance Police Department who were charged with vandalism for spray painting a swastika on the seat of a car that they had impounded. Even though in his statement, Los Angeles DA George Gascon reiterated that his office is “committed to uprooting discrimination with law enforcement ranks”, it is obvious that there is a long way to go to clean up the Torrance Police Department. Rabbi Aryeh Cohen similarly stated that the only reasonable solution is to create a civilian oversight board or commission as there is for the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department. A 2018 Grand Jury report already pointed out the need for civilian oversight of the police department. In their words “the absence of civilian oversight in 44 of the 46 law enforcement agencies in Los Angeles County is a problem and should be an issue of great concern.” Furthermore, Rabbi Aryeh Cohen stressed out in his article, that the incident of police officers spraying Nazi graffiti should be of the highest concern to the Jewish community for two reasons. First, because it reveals that, in Torrance, some who are supposed to protect the community are endangering it. Second, this incident pulls the curtain back on the network of interwoven hatreds (antisemitism, racism, anti-Blackness, misogyny, homophobia, Islamophobia) which animate the culture of law enforcement in Torrance. The Jewish community should join its voice with the voices of all the families and communities who have been harmed by the Torrance PD and demand that the Mayor and City Council appoint a civilian oversight committee immediately.