Los Angeles Does Police Union’s Dirty Work For It, Sues Person Over Public Records He Legally Obtained

Legal Issues

from the well-now-we-know-who-actually-runs-the-LA-show dept

For years, California residents were allowed to know almost nothing about some of their public servants. While most of the government was a (relative) open book, law enforcement officers and their misconduct records were shielded from public view by a law that exempted plenty of police wrongdoing from public records requests.

That changed in 2019 when SB 1421 went into effect, bringing cop shops in line with the rest of California’s government agencies. Cops reacted as they always do when asked to be accountable: they sued, destroyed records, and otherwise behaved as though they should be above this law as well.

Ben Camacho — an investigative journalist and contributor to the invaluable independent journalism outfit Knock LA — made a public records request for photos of Los Angeles PD officers. After a brief bout of litigation, the LAPD handed over the photos. Camacho then sent these photos to the Stop LAPD Spying Coalition, which published the photos in its searchable database of LAPD officers and (if applicable) their misconduct records.

That’s when things went sideways. As Matthew Strugar reports, the LAPD’s police union sued the city for turning over these photos to Camacho, bizarrely claiming that every officer employed by the LAPD is “undercover” in some way, which means the release of their photos jeopardizes their ability to continue their “undercover” work. The LAPD’s police chief started complaining as well, demanding — along with the union — that the city “prosecute” Ben Camacho for legally obtaining public records with a public records request.

The union’s lawsuit against the city didn’t go anywhere. The union tried to force the city to take down the Stop LAPD Spying Coalition’s website. But Stop LAPD Spying was not a party to the lawsuit, so the city was unable to do this.

But the city persisted. Ceding its power to the police union, the city of Los Angeles has now sued Ben Camacho and Stop LAPD Spying Coalition, demanding the court open up a memory hole so it can appease its bitchiest bosses — none of whom happen to be the people whose tax dollars ensure LA legislators and their lawyers get their paychecks every month.

The lawsuit [PDF] is dumb. And it’s dumb in a way that’s going to harm LA residents’ rights, should a court somehow be persuaded to do anything other than tell the City of Los Angeles to STFU and GTFO.

First, the city tries to pretend as though it was somehow duped out of these “sensitive” records by a particularly crafty public records requester.

The City seeks emergency judicial intervention to protect the lives of law enforcement officers currently serving in sensitive assignments whose identities were compromised by the inadvertent release of their photographs pursuant to a California Public Records Act response.

Pretty sure this release was advertent. And if the city of LA wasn’t supposed to release the records, the problem lies with the city, not the person who received the records legally. As the lawsuit notes, the city’s attempt to “retrieve” the information it released (after being pressured by the LAPD’s union — it had no interest in doing this until after the union sued it) have been “rebuffed.”

Rebuffing is the proper response. Camacho and the entities he shared these records with are fully within their rights to public information they obtained legally from government agencies. That the city may now regret its decision to “inadvertently” release officers’ photos is something only it needs to deal with. It is not a legal cause of action.

And the city is having a hell of time putting together a legal argument that won’t immediately be laughed out of court. I don’t think it’s managed to clear that bar, though.

[W]hile a strong public interest exists in governmental transparency, the public has an equally strong, and sometimes conflicting interest, in public safety, which requires maintaining the safety, security, and efficacy of its law enforcement agencies and officers. Select sworn law enforcement officers serve in sensitive assignments, including as undercover officers, who work covertly by concealing their identities as agents of the law to gather information about criminal activities. These officers voluntarily expose themselves to serious risks to their personal safety to gather evidence necessary to prosecute crimes. Exposure of their true identities compromises current and future criminal investigations and exposes these officers to real and present danger of harm by the criminals with whom they engage.

Whew. That is some fine legal writing there, folks. The city is arguing two things, neither of which is particularly credible.

First, it’s arguing that when the public interests’ conflict with themselves (I doubt they do, but that’s the city’s legal sales pitch), the court should side with… the government’s interests. In other words, when it comes down to a coin flip as to how to best serve the public’s interests, the government should be allowed to show up in court and demand the coin flip never occur and that the government should be able to keep the coin as well.

The second argument is no better. It says that because some officers might be engaged in covert operations, all photos of LAPD officers should be taken down. That may be the only way to fix this. Demanding removals of certain photos will allow records recipients to make inferences about officers engaged in undercover work. Conversely, leaving all photos up might allow criminals to suss out who among them might be wearing a wire. Either way, this photographic bell can’t be unrung, so asking a court to do the impossible is just going to waste even more taxpayer dollars.

But even if the city has an interest in protecting certain LAPD officers, it cannot make the claim it does immediately following its stated desire to see the impossible done.

Defendants Ben Camacho, Stop LAPD Spying Coalition, and Does 1-50 are willfully exposing to the public the identities of Los Angeles Police Department (“LAPD”) officers in undercover assignments on the website Watch the Watchers, despite knowing that they are not entitled to possess this information.

Yeah, that’s wrong. They are entitled to this information. Just because the government didn’t mean to give them this information doesn’t mean they obtained it illegally. And just because the government belatedly regrets its (alleged) failure to withhold this information doesn’t give it the right to demand lawful recipients “return” the photos, as if that were something that could actually be accomplished.

I mean, technically Camacho and Stop LAPD Spying would have to do nothing more than email back the same attachments they received from the city of Los Angeles to “return” this information. But that’s not what the city of LA has in mind and it apparently thinks a court order can somehow bypass the reality of digital distribution and the open internet.

The city fucked up here. It admits in its lawsuit that Camacho specifically agreed to allow the LAPD and the city to withhold photos of officers “working in an undercover capacity.” However, the city released those photos as well. The union can keep suing the city of Los Angeles. But at no point should the city be allowed to sue the person who legally obtained photos the city never meant to include in its fulfillment of the public records request. And at no point should Camacho or the Stop LAPD Spying Coalition be forced to shut down websites because someone else made a mistake.

Filed Under: ben camacho, foia, free speech, lapd, public records, transparency