City Attorneys: LAPD Officers in Lawsuit, Not 'Undercover Cops'

LOS ANGELES – After more than a year of arguing that hundreds of undercover LAPD officers were in danger because their photos were accidentally made public, the city of Los Angeles has suddenly changed course and admitted that most of those involved were not in the most sensitive sector. police roles.

In a series of lawsuits last week, city attorneys argued that the roughly 900 officers — whose names have so far been withheld — do not have the right to remain anonymous, and asked a judge to order that their identities be made public if their court case against the city must continue. The city has also sought to dismiss the lawsuit entirely.

The case centers on the publication of the photos on the Watch the Watchers website by journalist Ben Camacho and the activist group Stop LAPD Spying Coalition in March 2023. The city’s disclosure of the mugshot-style images – along with names, races and other demographic data of police officers – in response to a public records request sparked outrage from the Los Angeles Police Department and led to claims from LAPD and city leaders that undercover officers had been compromised.

Several officers said in anonymous statements earlier this year that they were forced to add extra security to their homes and pay for online services to remove their identities from Internet searches. Some said they had sold their homes and moved out of an abundance of caution.

But in filings this week, attorneys for the city told the court that while some officers had worked undercover in the past or might want to do so in the future, “none of these 900-plus Doe plaintiffs are currently ‘undercover’ full-time. officers. ”

Assistant City Attorney Hector Emilio Corea said in an affidavit that he was part of a team of attorneys and staffers from the City Attorney’s Office that painstakingly searched the backgrounds of most of the plaintiffs.

Corea said photos of many officers involved were already public on a Facebook page for the LAPD Museum, which published a 2019 yearbook listing their names, ranks and assignments.

The yearbook, which remains for sale online, is now only sold to current and former law enforcement personnel, but Corea said he used the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine to show that those restrictions were not in effect until November 2022.

While it is recognized that some officers may occasionally perform assignments that require them to go undercover or otherwise mask their identities, only those considered 650 in LAPD parlance are considered truly “undercover,” said Corea.

The names of full-fledged undercover officers – who conduct covert operations with outlaw motorcycle gangs, terrorist groups or drug cartels – are kept out of department records and known only to a handful of superiors. Most have changed their physical appearance and adopted fictitious identities, up to and including new driver’s licenses. Some are located out of state.

Although most of the anonymous officers who sued the city claimed they were conducting undercover assignments at the time of the “accidental release,” they failed to specify the dates or duration of their assignments, according to Corea.

The latest documents mark a sharp change in tone by the city, which filed a lawsuit in April 2023 seeking “the return of these inadvertently produced photos to protect the lives and work of these undercover officers.” That lawsuit, which has now been settled, is separate from the lawsuit filed by the 900 officers. The city attorney’s office did not respond to an email Tuesday seeking further comment.

Hamid Khan, organizer of Stop LAPD Spying, said the city has made a U-turn and is now “basically making the same argument we are” that the photos don’t endanger anyone’s safety.

“But not before a year of demonizing ourselves, demonizing the press and putting this target on us,” Khan said, noting that the group received numerous threats after being singled out in public comments by LA Mayor Karen Bass and members of the city’s police force. committee.

When the city sued Camacho and Stop LAPD Spying in an effort to get the photos back, The Times was among the media outlets that joined a coalition of news organizations that criticized the measure as a brazen attack on press freedom. The city agreed in June to settle the lawsuit and pay $300,000 in legal fees, but lawsuits by the officers involved are still ongoing.

When reached Tuesday, Camacho referred The Times to his own wire on X about “the poetic justice” of the city, seemingly adopting the same argument he and Stop LAPD Spying have been making for months.

The “Watch the Watchers” site, intended as a tool for accountability and transparency for the public, has ironically become so popular among sworn and civilian LAPD employees that some within the department have taken to calling it the “LAPD Facebook.” Many officers who spoke to The Times said they use the site regularly, sometimes daily, to look up colleagues in the sprawling 8,700-officer force.

But in the recent anonymous court filings, some officers claimed that publishing the photos had put them in danger. One of them said they had previously worked undercover investigating the Mexican mafia, and claimed they learned last year about a possible threat against themselves, themselves and their wife.

In August 2023, the statement said, a suspect in the Mexican Mafia case sent a screenshot of the officer’s “Watch the Watchers” photo to a suspected gang associate, asking if they knew who the officer was. The suspect later found out the officer’s home address, the officer said. Fearing for their wives’ safety and their own, the officer said they had moved to a hotel and an armed officer was stationed outside 24 hours a day.

One officer said they suffered “extreme anxiety” after their photo appeared on the site, court records show. They said in a statement that they had worked undercover to buy guns from gang members, who now circulated their photos “with the intention of killing them when found.” The officer reported that he had purchased additional home security and instructed his spouse to take alternate routes home to avoid being followed.

Another officer said they had been duped by a former high school classmate. The person allegedly posted the officer’s photo on her Facebook and Instagram accounts and called them a fascist “pig” and a traitor to their race. The officer said the account’s followers include activists “who hold radical views and often (play) a leading role in organizing protests that have turned violent against police officers.”

Matt McNicholas, one of several attorneys representing the affected officers, said that after the city’s previous arguments, it was hypocritical to suddenly say his clients needed to be identified.

‘Now they’re taking a completely opposite position? How do you reconcile that?’ said McNicholas. “They can’t swear under threat of perjury that irreparable damage has been done, and then turn around and say under our trial, ‘No harm, no foul.'”

He said even officers who go undercover “occasionally” are still in danger because their faces are so widely available online.

He accused the city’s lawyers of minimizing the threat such officers face when dealing with suspects prone to violence and hyper-vigilant about the presence of law enforcement.

“Whether you like them or not, whether you want to pay them back or not, you can’t put their lives in danger,” McNicholas said.

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