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# Police chief responds to critic, sets record straight
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/police-chief-responds-to-critic-sets-record-straight/
- Published: 2003-12-08T16:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-23T03:18:34.000Z
- Author: Guest Author
- Tags: Crime, Pico, #archive-import

*SM police chief questions motives behind comments*

*By James. T. Butts Jr.*

Guest Commentary by James T. Butts Jr.

I read with interest “RAND offers answers to SM gun violence” (SMDP, Dec. 1, page 1) and felt compelled to respond not only to the implied premise of the article (that the RAND study offers revolutionary ideas for the police department), but also to the extended commentary provided by school board member Oscar de la Torre, the founder and director of the Pico Youth and Family Center. Of concern is the manner in which you consistently present him as the authoritative voice on all things Pico. I believe his sentiments are far from this community’s mainstream in the area of police enforcement practices.

First, the RAND study. As you correctly noted in a single line of your article, “Riley said Santa Monica has a minute level of violence compared to Hollenbeck...” Later, your article states, “As part of the study, police officers met regularly and worked with probation officers, parole workers, housing officials, prosecutors from the local, state and federal levels, and representatives from local schools, churches and social service agencies.”

During this event, the SMPD brought together over 50 agencies representing, law enforcement, schools, prosecutors, parole, probation, and family services from multiple jurisdictions. We identified the major and most violent players from these gangs and armed with parole, probation and arrest warrants, systematically located and arrested these individuals. During one such follow-up investigation, Santa Monica officers intercepted a drive-by shooting in progress. As a result, arrests were made and assault rifles were recovered. Specialized units and augmented patrols were deployed to the area. Community engagement was heightened during this time of crisis. In subsequent years since this enforcement and community intervention, we have significantly decreased gang violence in our city. We will continue to work with the community in our collective efforts to make our city violence-free.

The SMPD years ago in conjunction with Los Angeles County Probation were co-applicants for a grant that pays for a full-time probation officer assigned to Santa Monica. We have for at least seven years developed close ties with the parole officer whose jurisdiction includes our city and those ties have resulted in numerous re-incarcerations of parolees in violation of the terms and conditions of their parole. Equally important, it has sent a clear message to many others to abide by the terms of their conditional release from prison. In summation, every strategy described in your article has years ago been used by the SMPD in attacking gang violence.

Further, I am disappointed in your and other local publications’ reporting of “shootings” in Santa Monica. In law enforcement, the term “shooting” refers to an act where someone is injured or killed as a result of gunfire, or when an occupied residence or vehicle is struck by gunfire. This does not frequently happen in Santa Monica, although any such acts at all are abhorrent and cannot be tolerated in civilized society. What does occur in Pico to almost the virtual exclusion of any other neighborhood in Santa Monica are calls of “shots fired” or “shots heard.”

The SMPD, unlike virtually any other law enforcement agency performs investigative follow-up on these “shots fired” situations that are normally impossible to solve. We work with residents and witnesses, develop information and when possible, charge involved individuals. Those charges may be directly related to the “shots fired” incident, or due to ancillary reasons, such as violation of parole or probation, or illegal possession of a firearm, drugs or drug paraphernalia. Sometimes the directly related charges are not filed by the Los Angeles District Attorney due to insufficiency of the ability to provide proof beyond a reasonable doubt. However, the swift apprehension and filing parole/probation violation or other ancillary charges sends a strong message to those involved and removes offenders temporarily from the community.

Perhaps the most disturbing issue I take with your article and many others over the time of your publication is your use of unchallenged and many times, false in relation to fact, quotations provided for you by Oscar de la Torre. You mention our response to the shots fired calls from the summer and the shooting into an occupied dwelling. Your editor was invited to witness our tactics used when we conducted a parole warrant search and arrest (one of the articulated strategies of the RAND report).

Your paper reported the names and criminal charges filed on the individuals arrested and charged in these investigations.

You then quote de la Torre, unchallenged who says, “Essentially, what we end up doing is criminalizing the low-income sector of the city. and not only is that not effective policing, it’s disempowering.” Since your staff was acutely aware that the arrests were limited and surgical, I fail to understand your presentation of his statement without reference to your actual knowledge.

This mirrors a quote from de la Torre to the “Lookout” (Report Concludes Community Unity Can End Violence, Nov. 16, 2003). ”There’s no trust … There’s a whole culture of punishment that’s supported 12 times more than preventive behavior. It’s a symptom of the culture of punishment.” The Lookout (Shooting Arrests Still Pending, Oct. 12, 2003), “That’s usually the mode of operation — they arrest a lot of people to look like they are doing their job … It’s like George Bush’s preemptive strikes”

Crime has fallen 57 percent since 1993 and juvenile arrests have fallen in correlative pattern, if not in the same magnitude. The actual numbers of arrest versus declining crime belie such statements.

I ordinarily remain silent and choose not to acknowledge Mr. de la Torre’s consistent anti-police rhetoric under the belief that your staff and the Lookout staff would finally get it that he has never had a positive thing to say about this police department or any city staff involved in serving the community. Our officers are widely respected in our community and deserve fair representation in your paper. I would be disappointed if you continue to allow this unopposed rhetoric. de la Torre has a long-standing methodology of verbally and publicly denigrating by insult city staff and others. He does this as a means to obtain what he wants, whether that be city funding resources or the appearance of influence and power. The following quotes from news publications are illustrative of his thinking.

The first is found in the “LA City Beat” (Gangster’s Paradise Lost, Nov. 6-12, 2001). Oscar is quoted as saying, “The enemy of any gang on the westside is the loss of affordable housing, greedy landlords, abusive police practices and lack of city support for people of color. The gang members are fighting the wrong fight, killing each other and pushing themselves out of the westside.”

The second is from the Los Angeles Times Metro section (Santa Monica Stung by Gang Program Failure April 23, 2001), “Santa Monica is a liberal bastion, but it’s all ‘save the whales’ and let the blacks and Latinos die.”

What did he say this in response to? He said it in response to the city being forced to withdraw $300,000 in city-provided grant funding due in part to poor documentation and accounting practices of a gang violence intervention partnership collaborative of which he was a member.

Another example of the tendency of Mr. De la Torre’s failure to accept responsibility for his actions or failure to act follows. The same “Times” article quotes his response to the discontinuation of funding, “… there were racial issues …the leaders of the city said the blacks and Mexicans have to work together, not realizing there has been … years of violence between these two communities.”

The city after being disparaged as a thank-you for their efforts, proceeded to later grant Mr. de la Torre $289,000 to fund his Pico Youth and Family Center, which as executive director, pays him approximately $60,000 per year. The city required a pass through for the grant in recognition of his prior difficulty in handling nonprofit grants. The Woodcraft Rangers was paid approximately $58,000 a year to serve as the pass through agency and at the end of a year, declined to continue working with Mr. De la Torre. It is my understanding that during that year, Oscar was expected to complete paperwork necessary to file and receive non-profit status for the PYFC, which he failed to do. The Woodcraft Rangers agreed to extend their stewardship until the Public Health Foundation could take over and “help PYFC achieve its non-profit status and continue to offer its much needed services to Santa Monica’s young adults,” (Kathy Pinckert The Lookout, Sept. 1, 2003). What was the school board member’s response? “… glad that Woodcraft Rangers had a change of heart, (but added that) … I don’t think it’s honorable to threaten much needed services for the community … I don’t think it’s honorable and fair. Why wait for the last minute? Why threaten closure? To put a gun to our head and threaten closure, to me that’s unethical.”

It speaks volumes to me that an agency would turn down funding to be disassociated with a pass through recipient.

I have other examples but due to time and space, I will leave for later. My point is, Oscar de la Torre has a pattern of using insult and denigration to get his way. He seeks to position himself and a small group of followers as the leadership of the Pico neighborhood, when in fact, Pico, like all our neighborhoods is populated by a diverse, and not monolithic, group of thoughts, orientations and perspectives. He has referred to himself to city staff as “the mayor of Pico.” He is not, and I ask that future reporting be more balanced in portraying community sentiment regarding the efforts of the city staff and police department as we help to facilitate the residents’ collective vision for life in their neighborhood. The SMPD will continue its decade long history of community outreach and engagement.

(James T. Butts Jr. is the chief of police in Santa Monica).

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on December 8, 2003.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/120803.pdf?ref=smdp.com)