HBPD shows body cam video to refute theater director’s racial harassment allegation

(Editor’s note: Following is a Hermosa Beach Police Instagram post issued Friday, November 21, in response to a story alleging police racial harassment posted to this site (below the HBPD Instagram Post) on Thursday November 20. To view the police body cam and dash cam video, click on the HBPD Instagram post and then click on the right scroll arrow.

 

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by Hermosa Beach Police (@hermosabeachpolice)

by Laura Garber

After the curtains closed on the one-night theatre production, “Broken Curses,” at the Hermosa Beach Community Theatre on Friday, November 14 director Spencer Collins IV came on stage and told the 250 attendees he had been harassed by Hermosa Beach Police.

According to Kim Nowak, a member of the Hermosa Beach Women’s Club, who was in attendance, Collins said he was pulled over multiple times in one night by the Hermosa Police. As a result, according to Nowak, Collins said he contemplated cancelling the production. 

In an interview on Monday, November 17, Collins told Easy Reader an HBPD officer threatened to shoot him during the first of two November 14 traffic stops.

Rather than issue a statement refuting the allegations, Hermosa  Police Captain Eric Cahalan showed Easy Reader body cam and dash cam (patrol car) video of two incidents with Collins and his partner Anthony Norris in the early morning of November 14, just after midnight, on the day of the theater production. 

On Friday, November 21, Captain Cahalan also showed the videos to Collins. After viewing the videos, HBPD states in a Friday, November 21 Instagram post, Collins “shared the following statement: ‘After reviewing the video with Captain Cahalan, I realize that the way I experienced the incident as a traumatized African American male with PTSD was not the same as through the lens of the video or perspective of the Hermosa Beach Police Department. Clearly, they were just doing their jobs. Thank you for allowing us the opportunity to view the footage with you and provide this statement.’

Collins’ statement to the police on Friday differed from what he told Easy Reader earlier in the week.

In the Monday November 14 interview, Collins said he and Norris left the Community Theatre shortly after midnight the previous Friday in their rented U-Haul truck to find an overnight parking space in the city.

“I was told [by a Hermosa city employee] that we couldn’t leave the trucks there,” Collins said. “Which is pretty unusual, because normally when I rent theaters and I have rented several — I’ve been doing this work for almost 20 years now — whenever we rent a theater, we’ve always been allowed to leave the U-Haul there.”

As they looked for parking, Collins said, an HBPD officer flashed a light at him.

“And as soon as I stepped off of the truck, [the officer] started yelling at me, like, ‘What are you doing?’”

Collins said the officer asked him why he blew through the stop sign at Pier Avenue and Ardmore. Collins said he told the officer he stopped at the stop sign.

“Then he yelled, ‘Do you want to argue with me?’ And I said, ‘Sir, I’m not arguing. All I’m doing is answering your questions,’” Collins told Easy Reader.

Collins said the officer asked Collins why his tires screeched. Collins said he responded by saying the tires screeched because the street was wet from the rain.

“You should go back to your neighborhood. Go back to your neighborhood,” Collins said the officer told him. “And I said, ‘Okay, that’s what we’re trying to do.’ And then he was like, ‘Oh, you got lip. Do you want me to shoot you?’ And I’m like, ‘If you want to shoot me over a screeched tire, then go ahead. All I’m trying to do is get home and find a place to park.’ So he told me to get in the truck and get out of here.”  

“Being a Black man in a town that’s not composed of a lot of other Black people,” Collins told Easy Reader, “was intimidating to say the least. My heart was racing out of my chest because I knew that if anything happened, it was going to be our word against theirs,” Collins told Easy Reader. “If they shoot us or anything, like the first officer threatened to do, nobody was going to be there to say what really happened.” 

The first video viewed by Easy Reader, a body camera, showed Officer Rick Taniguchi standing in front of the Hermosa Community Center on Pier Avenue. His body camera was recording an unrelated traffic stop on Pier Avenue he was attending to. 

Taniguchi’s body cam video shows a U-Haul running the stop sign at Pier Avenue and Ardmore Avenue.

The video then shows Taniguchi flashing his light at the U-Haul. The U-Haul pulls over in front of the Community Theater and Collins steps out of the U-Haul and walks over to his Kia, which is parked in front of the theater.

Officer Taniguchi approaches Collins and can be heard telling Collins he ran the stop sign, and needs to drive more carefully. Collins can be heard denying he ran the stop sign.

“Are you arguing with me?” officer Taniguchi asks Collins. “Do you want me to write you a ticket?”

Collins responds, “No, I don’t want you to write me a ticket.”

Officer Taniguchi again tells Collins to drive more carefully. Taniguchi is then seen returning to his earlier Pier Avenue traffic stop. 

A later video shows Officer Carly Moreno, who is driving a patrol car with officer Taniguchi in the passenger seat, pulling over a U-Haul heading northbound on Pacific Coast Highway. The U-Haul’s back, roll-up door is open a quarter of the way. 

Collins’ Kia also pulls over and parks in front of the U-Haul. Cahalan said Moreno and Taniguchi called for back-up when they saw the Kia pull over.

Moreno’s body cam shows Moreno approaching Norris and asking for his license and registration.

Norris can be heard in the video telling officer Moreno he did not have the registration for the rented U-Haul. He also tells the officer about their upcoming show, “Broken Curses,” playing at the Hermosa Beach Community Theatre the coming evening.

The body cam shows Moreno running Norris’ drivers license and returning the license to him.

Norris can be heard on video telling Moreno that the truck was not stolen. 

In an interview with Easy Reader, Norris said Officer Moreno told him they wanted to check if the U-Haul was stolen. Norris said he told the officer, “We just left the theatre. Why would we be rolling around in the stolen truck?”

That exchange is not heard on the video Easy Reader viewed.

Moreno can be heard on the bodycam footage telling Norris they will not issue him a citation. She asks him to wait until the police officers drive off before getting out of his U-Haul to close the roll-up door.

The video shows officers leaving the scene.

Collins, when questioned about the videos on Wednesday, November 19, said, “It’s gonna be hard for me to comment without seeing the footage, but [the threat] was definitely mentioned,” Collins said he wanted to view the first incident, when he said he was threatened with being shot. He said the threat was made before he got out of the U-Haul on Pacific Coast Highway.

“That’s the one I want to see because the threat is important. I want to see the threat.” 

In a text to Easy Reader on Tuesday November 18, Collins said he had accepted the police department’s invitation to view the videos and hoped to discuss with the police “how they can have better interactions with those outside of the Hermosa Community.” ER