LAPD Officers Gather In Court To Bitch About Having Their Photos Inadvertently Released
You would think this is a done deal, but it isn’t. It just keeps getting stupider.
Last year, journalist Ben Camacho filed a public records request for photos of all active Los Angeles PD officers. After a couple of rounds of litigation, the city agreed to release the sought records. Camacho shared these with the Stop LAPD Spying Coalition, which added the photos to its existing searchable database of current LAPD officers.
All (litigation) hell broke loose shortly thereafter. The city sued Camacho, demanding the “return” of the digital files it had given him. LAPD officers sued the city for releasing the photos. The LAPD’s union was also involved in the litigation.
As for Camacho, he’d done nothing wrong. He lawfully acquired the files. And he lawfully shared the files with others. This was confirmed by the settlement paid to Camacho by the city of Los Angeles, which agreed Camacho had obtained these photos legally. And that settlement is part of its defense in the lawsuit filed against by LAPD officers — the admission that a mistake was made by releasing the photos, but it was neither malicious or legally negligent. Furthermore, the city has asserted its own immunity, saying its decision to release this information (whether intentionally or not) is beyond the reach of the officers’ litigation.
Not that it matters to the officers, who still seem to think that if they whine enough, someone will do something about it. Obviously, whatever the result, the publication of the photos has already happened and cannot be undone. So, the officers have decided the best way forward with their litigation is to make a bunch of unverifiable claims about how this publication has endangered them.
Are you guys fans of conclusory statements and vague assertions? Great news! The affidavits being filed by LAPD officers have plenty of both, as the Los Angeles Daily News reports.
Multiple Los Angeles police officers have given sworn declarations in opposition to a motion by the city of Los Angeles to dismiss lawsuits collectively filed by hundreds of officers with sensitive assignments who allege their safety was affected by the mistaken release of the plaintiffs’ photographs in 2023.
“Since the release of my service photo, I avoid public spaces and am very cautious when I am in a public space,” says one such officer identified only as John Doe 137. “I am in constant fear that someone will be able to identify me, follow me home and harm me or my family.”
Doe 138 says he always carries his firearm when he leaves home, even if just to go grocery shopping.
Another officer, John Doe 2, says he was working undercover when at the time of the dissemination of his photo and that his life has changed “forever” as a result.
“Since the release of my personal and private information, I have been forced to alter my social media accounts, change my mailing address and alter my family trust and real estate holdings in order to get back some of the privacy that I have lost,” Doe 2 says.
LOL. What even is this? The first officer seems to believe people are performing searches of the Stop LAPD Spying database and performing citywide searches in person to stalk officers whose photos were made available. Officer Doe 138 is probably just doing what he has always done: going to the grocery store strapped. And the third officer is asserting an extreme overreaction to the publication of a service photo — one that expresses a desire to reclaim “privacy” but says nothing about the presumptive danger of being identified by criminals as an undercover officer.
That’s only part of the stupidity. Another officer claims the release of his photo “affected his mental health” because at some time in the past, he once worked in county jails to elicit confessions from people already imprisoned for other crimes. At no point does this affidavit suggest this is something he is still doing, much less why this release would change anything at all about the danger level since presumably the people he questioned in jail ALREADY KNOW WHAT HE LOOKS LIKE.
It’s all very dramatic and all very useless. As the city has pointed out — something buttressed by its settlement with Ben Camacho — what happened here was unfortunate, but inadvertent. Since it wasn’t deliberate, there’s no cause for action. And even if it was deliberate, the city government’s litigation privilege makes it immune to this lawsuit.
There you have it, aggrieved coppers. Welcome to the reality you rarely have to encounter: the invocation of immunity by someone other than yourselves. Maybe you’ll learn something from the experience. Then again, if regular officers are filing affidavits claiming emotional distress from release of the photos, they’re way off the mark. The only thing the city agrees was “unfortunate but inadvertent” was the release of photos of undercover officers. Any regular officer who performs their duties in public, undisguised, and (most likely) while wearing an LAPD uniform, has zero chance of demonstrating the release of their photo changed the danger matrix of performing their day-to-day job.
Suck it up, self-proclaimed heroes. The affidavits sworn to here only contain fantasies about theoretical danger. If a cop can actually demonstrate a link between the release of these files and any current threats/harassment, they should definitely do so. Given that no one has, this is just a bunch of people whining because one of their extra rights was inadvertently (and momentarily) ignored.