THE HUTCHINSON REPORT: L.A. city attorney attempts to criminalize the victim

By Earl Ofari Hutchinson

Contributing Columnist

One of Malcolm X’ s oft repeated quips about Black victimization was “The [oppressor] can make the criminal look like the victim and the victim (the Black oppressed) look like the criminal.

He could easily have had Alexander Donata Mitchell in mind when he made that insightful admonition.

In July 2024, a video of Mitchell being arrested in Watts went viral and shocked many. Mitchell was standing upright, handcuffed, and appeared to offer no resistance to Los Angeles police officer Joshua Sportiello.

Yet, suddenly the officer cold-cocked him with a punch flush on the jaw. Mitchell was then swarmed by other officers, tossed to the ground and hogtied. The video ignited a flood of justifiably angry protests.

Sportiello was removed from street duty pending investigation. Mitchell and his attorney held an angry press conference. A hefty suit was filed against the city for police misconduct.

That might have been the end of the ugly story. But no, a year and a half later, Los Angeles City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto announced that her office would file civil and misdemeanor criminal charges against Mitchell for resisting arrest. A court date is scheduled for April.

The first and obvious thought about this incredible turn of events is that this is little more than raw, vindictive retaliation by the city attorney’s office to the Mitchell lawsuit. Another thought is that this is just another effort by the city to close ranks around an officer caught on camera using excessive force against a suspect. The two thoughts have much merit.

However, there’s more to the Mitchell saga than just a city attorney trying to stave off a major lawsuit. It opens wide a big, troubling problem that plagues Los Angeles and shows no sign of getting any better.

That is the massive amount of money the city is shelling out because of real and alleged LAPD misconduct. The pay out for abuse claims is staggering. Since September 2019, there have been more than 2,000 claim settlements. The total payout has exceeded $400 million.

The claims are for an array of malfunctions and misconduct acts by LAPD officers that range from harassment to car collisions to illegal searches. The most troubling, though, are the claims resulting from the use of force.

Since 2019, there have been 35 cases that have involved the department’s excessive use of force and other civil rights violations against protesters. Those cases led to $20 million in payouts. However, there have been a troubling number of lawsuits that involve the use of deadly or excessive force such as the Mitchell case.

The worst thing is the number of claims falling and the dollar amount pay out have surged every year since 2019. The result is predictable. It is a major cause of Los Angeles bordering on the brink of bankruptcy.

This in turn has had a blowback effect throughout city agencies. It has forced freezes, cutbacks, reductions in hiring, and in some instances the scaling back of city services.

In announcing an audit, City Controller Kenneth Mejia, in an anguished press release last November, publicly warned “Liability payouts are a major reason that the city is in a fiscal emergency. Behind each payout is an example of city government failing to serve and meet the expectations of its constituents.” 

Police and city officials have been closed mouth in responding to the repeated attempts by public fiscal watch dog groups to get answers why the LAPD continues to be the target of countless lawsuits for misconduct. But more important is what the city and the department are doing to curb the number and dollar amount of the lawsuit settlements.

An independent study in 2016 provided some answers to the dilemma. One proposal was that individual officers should be required to obtain their own personal liability insurance. The city would subsidize the premium owed and in the event of a claim against the officer their liability insurer would cover the cost.

Police unions, the courts, and city officials have either opposed this step or been lukewarm toward it. The counter is that it would inhibit officers from performing their duties, some of which do require the legitimate use of force. In any case, qualified liability has been a dead letter whenever raised by police watchdog groups.

The better option is that the city officials do their homework and track the outcomes of their lawsuits and use the information found in their depositions and discoveries to better supervise, discipline and train officers. Portland does that.

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors also uses a variant of that in its demand that the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department submit a corrective action plan before the county rubber stamps any settlement that exceeds $100,000.

The potential fiscal crunch that L.A. city faces driven in part by handing out tens of millions of dollars for LAPD misconduct now puts the L.A. city attorney’s stunning counter action against Mitchell in an understandable light. That doesn’t make it any less an appalling, desperate action, an action that demands that criminal and civil charges against Mitchell be dropped and a fair and equitable settlement be reached with him. Justice, not fiscal responsibility, demands it.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His latest book is “The Epstein Distraction.” He hosts the weekly news and issues commentary radio show “The Hutchinson Report” Wednesdays at 6 p.m. at ktymgospel.net and Facebook Livestreamed at facebook.com/earl.o.hutchinson.