Over 300 officers with the Los Angeles Police Department have filed suit against the city and their employers after a public records request placed them, and in turn the city, at grave risk in the name of “radical transparency.”
(Video: KTLA)
Tuesday, attorneys representing 321 undercover LAPD officers announced the suit after the identity of their clients, including photos, were published online.
“The City of Los Angeles’ reckless production of the undercover officers’ identities does irreparable damage to these individuals — their lives, careers and ongoing investigations are at risk,” attorney Matthew McNicholas said as part of the press release.
“The City of Los Angeles and LAPD have a duty of care to their employees and should have had appropriate safeguards in place to ensure nothing like this ever happened,” he added. “They need to face responsibility for their catastrophic negligence.”
As it happened, the LAPD had released the images of uncover officers, as well as those intermittently assigned to Gangs, Narcotics, Trafficking and Vice, with photos of over 9,000 officers when a journalist for nonprofit newsroom Knock LA submitted a public records request.
Following receipt of the information, activist group Stop LAPD Spying Coalition took the data and images and published them in a publicly searchable database called “Watch the Watchers.”
Hamid Khan, a coordinator with the group, reportedly pushed back on the lawsuit calling it an “assault on people’s rights to access” information needed for accountability, according to the LA Times. Khan’s group, the outlet said “wants to abolish traditional law enforcement but in the interim has pushed for what it calls radical transparency.”
Even Democratic Mayor Karen Bass recognized the danger and called the exposure, “an unacceptable breach that puts the lives of our officers and their families at risk,” adding, “I expect there to be a full accounting of how this happened and a clear plan to prevent this sort of incident from happening again.”
This is an unacceptable breach that puts the lives of our officers and their families at risk.
I expect there to be a full accounting of how this happened and a clear plan to prevent this sort of incident from happening again.https://t.co/aIlXBNnqBP
— Mayor Karen Bass (@MayorOfLA) March 26, 2023
According to McNicholas and fellow attorneys Greg Smith and Jacob Kalinski, the how stemmed from the city “ultimately incorrectly [including] undercover active-duty police officers and officers with prior undercover assignments,” when responding to the records request, allegedly without LAPD Chief Michel Moore’s knowledge.
During a press conference last month, Moore had said, “We erred in the sense that there’s photographs that are in there that should not have been in there. Now … that ship has sailed.”
As a result, numerous undercover operations throughout the city had to be canceled to protect the safety of the officers, and some, McNicholas said, even had to move to protect their families.
“Will the city provide a service or money to scrub from the internet when these things keep popping up?” officers have repeatedly asked the attorney. In response he has told them,”I don’t know what the city is willing to do.”
However, that was reported as a stated objective of the lawsuit in seeking a means to remedy the situation, along with ensuring that it can never happen again.
Native of Brooklyn, NY, Kevin Haggerty is a graduate of Hunter College where he studied Cultural Anthropology and Geography. An avid reader and truth seeker, he currently resides in Texas with his wife and their dog and, when he isn't researching current events and their impacts, you'll find him spending time with friends and family or working on his next novel.
- Illegal immigrant from Russia celebrates NYC exit: ‘They give me ticket for free to Chicago!’ - April 17, 2024
- NPR’s Uri Berliner resigns – blasts CEO who sees 1st Amendment used to defend old posts as ‘a challenge’ - April 17, 2024
- ‘Pretty scary’: Local leaders respond to chaos of San Diego area beaches being rushed by illegal migrants - April 17, 2024
Comment
We have no tolerance for comments containing violence, racism, profanity, vulgarity, doxing, or discourteous behavior. If a comment is spam, instead of replying to it please click the ∨ icon below and to the right of that comment. Thank you for partnering with us to maintain fruitful conversation.