City Of Los Angeles Says Fuck It: No Cops Were Harmed When We Released Their Names And Photos

This is just what I needed to read after a post-election hell week or two. The city of Los Angeles has gone past exhaustion to vindictive irritation after being sued by the same cops it employs because it (legally) handed over photos and names of LAPD officers to journalist Ben Camacho. Ben Camacho then shared those with activist group, Stop LAPD Spying Coalition, which added those to its searchable database of local law enforcement officers.

At first, the city played ball. It went to bat for the LAPD and claimed Camacho and Stop LAPD Spying had no right to publish the information they’d obtained legally via public records requests. Then the LAPD’s union sued the city, not only claiming the city had no legal right to release this information, but that officers’ lives were being threatened by the publication of this data.

Roughly 900 current officers were contained in the data dump. Dozens of those submitted affidavits to the court in the lawsuit filed by the union claiming they’ve had to do everything from change phone numbers to leave town to avoid the supposed ongoing danger created by the release of this information.

The officers joining the lawsuit also maintained they had a right to remain anonymous while engaging in this lawsuit, which meant the city couldn’t counter specific allegations because its lawyers had no ideas which LAPD officers were making which claims.

After several months, it appears the City of Los Angeles has had it up to here with having its time wasted by anonymous officers, their union reps, and wall-to-wall affidavits filled with unverifiable cop claims.

So, it is with much rejoicing that I report the city is throwing most of these 900 cops directly under the bus.

After arguing for more than a year that hundreds of undercover LAPD officers were at risk because their photos were mistakenly made public, the city of Los Angeles has suddenly reversed course, conceding that most of those involved are not working in the most sensitive police roles.

In a series of court filings last week, city attorneys argued that the roughly 900 officers — whose names have so far been kept secret — don’t have a right to remain anonymous, and asked a judge to order their identities disclosed if their lawsuit against the city is to proceed. 

Now, that’s all just mainly procedural so it doesn’t sound much like a city tired of cop bullshit. But later in the article, more detail is added, which definitely makes some implications about the city’s apparent exasperation.

[I]n filings this week, lawyers for the city told the court that although some officers had worked undercover in the past or might wish to do so in the future, “none of these more than 900 Doe Plaintiffs are presently true full-time ‘undercover officers.’”

That undercuts the overly-dramatic submissions from several anonymous officers who claimed their current and future work — if not their lives and the lives of their loved ones — were endangered by the city’s release of this info.

Here’s the real banger: this information had already been made public for several years by the LAPD itself.

Assistant city attorney Hector Emilio Corea said in a sworn affidavit that he was part of a team of lawyers and staffers from the city attorney’s office who painstakingly combed through most of the plaintiff officers’ backgrounds.

Corea said photos of many officers involved had already [been made] public on a Facebook page for the LAPD Museum, which published a 2019 yearbook with their names, ranks and assignments.

These yearbooks are now limited to purchasers who can prove they’re police officers, but as the city attorney demonstrated via the Internet Archive, members of the public had been able to purchase these yearbooks as recently as November 2022. Not coincidentally, this move from public to private sales occurred only two months after Ben Camacho obtained these records from the city of Los Angeles.

Truly great stuff. That the city has shifted stances to more closely align with the journalist it sued (but later settled with) because it’s tired of all the bullshit a bunch of anonymous cops are bring to the courts is the perfect blend of irony and poetic justice. Cops like to claim they’re the baddest mfers to ever walk into the valley of the shadow of death, but the moment the public gets on-demand access to their names and positions, they’re suddenly so fearful they have to (allegedly) pull up stakes and/or plead anonymously in court. These cops need to grow up or get out of the business, especially since this is really about accountability and has nearly nothing to do with the publication of info that has already been made public by the LAPD itself.