Los Angeles to Pay $300,000 Settlement in Lawsuit Over Undercover Police Photos Published by Journalist
LOS ANGELES— A local journalist and a technology watchdog group were sued by the city last year for publishing photos of the names and faces of hundreds of undercover officers that were obtained through a public records request. On Monday, the journalist’s lawyer said that the city has agreed to pay $300,000 to cover their legal fees.
The release of the photos caused a big backlash from Los Angeles police officers and their union. They said it put at risk the safety of people working undercover and on other sensitive tasks, like investigations into gangs, drugs, and sex traffickers. The city attorney then sued Ben Camacho, who was a reporter for the progressive news site Knock LA at the time, and the watchdog group Stop LAPD Spying Coalition. This was seen as an attack on free speech and press freedoms by media rights experts and a group of newsrooms, including The Associated Press.
Camacho had asked for the LAPD’s roster, which includes pictures of all 9,300 officers and information about them, like their name, race, rank, date of hire, badge number, and division or department. The city officials didn’t ask for an exception for the undercover cops, so they gave Camacho their photos and personal information by accident. The records were used by the monitoring group to make Watch the Watchers, an online database that can be searched.
The lawsuit was brought by the city attorney’s office in April 2023 to try to get back the photos that had already been made public. Lawyer for Camacho Susan Seager said the deal happened after the city asked Camacho and Stop LAPD Spying to settle the case through mediation last month.
Seager said, “It shows that the city is aware that… if they give documents to a reporter, they can’t later sue the reporter and demand that they give them back.”
She said that “any government agency would be suing reporters right and left to get back documents they said they didn’t mean to give them” if the city had won the case.
When asked for comment on Monday by email, the city attorney’s office did not reply right away. The LAPD refused to say anything.
Some people who are against police spying said in a statement, “This case was never just about photos.” “It was about how people feel about violence from the government.”
A report from the Los Angeles Times says the city will also have to stop asking Camacho and Stop LAPD Spying to return the pictures of officers in sensitive positions, take them down from the internet, and not post them again. Court papers say that the deal must now be approved by the City Council and the mayor.
“This settlement is a win for the public, the First Amendment, and makes sure that the LAPD will continue to be very open,” Camacho wrote on X, which used to be Twitter, on Monday.
Camacho is still being sued by the city attorney’s office for a second time. This time, they want him and the Stop LAPD Spying Coalition to pay LAPD officers who sued the city after the picture release.
Source: AP News