LAPD union files lawsuit demanding takedown of photos of undercover officers

The union representing rank-and-file Los Angeles Police Department officers is suing Chief Michel Moore and the city to demand they take action to reclaim photos of potentially hundreds of undercover officers whose images were mistakenly released as part of a public records request earlier this month.

The Los Angeles Police Protective League is seeking to force the city to request a judge intervene in the publication of the photos in order to protect the identities of undercover officers and others who work sensitive assignments, according to the lawsuit filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court on Tuesday, March 28.

Images of about 9,300 sworn LAPD officers — nearly every cop on the force as of last summer — had their photos released online after an independent journalist sued the city to hand them over as public records. The photos were all published in a searchable database called “Watch the Watchers,” maintained by the Stop LAPD Spying Coalition, a group of civil rights advocates staunchly opposed to any expansion of LAPD’s surveillance powers.

While information about police officers is broadly covered under the California Public Records Act, which requires government agencies to hand over that information to journalists and the public, the identities of undercover officers who might face danger because of their work are generally protected under state law.

But Moore admitted the department mistakenly included the photos of the undercover officers when it released them last September. The union says because of that error, an unknown number of undercover investigations are now at risk of falling apart.

“It’s unprecedented,” said Robert Rico, LAPPL general counsel. “This is a historic act of malfeasance by the department.”

While the union has not been able to say exactly how many officers there are whose photos they want taken down, Rico said he’d spoken to dozens of undercover detectives worried their identities being leaked will disrupt their investigations.

Rico said the union is seeking to “claw back” the photos of only the undercover officers. He said the union wants the department to have a judge take down Watch the Watchers while they analyze the photos for the protected officers, then hand back the collection without those photos.

Whether or not LAPD would actually be able to do that will run into strong First Amendment protections over the disclosure of government information by the press.

Except in limited cases, the U.S. Constitution forbids government censorship of information by the press prior to publication, known as “prior restraint.” That protection was enshrined in a landmark 1931 Supreme Court case, Near v. Minnesota, and includes information accidentally released and information deemed to include national security concerns, as in publication of the Pentagon Papers by the New York Times in 1971.

Hamid Khan, a founder of the Stop LAPD Spying Coalition, said the group would fight any attempt to halt the publication of the photos.

“We’ll see them in court,” Khan said.

“This is obviously, clearly a very coordinated assault from the city, the LAPD and the LAPPL on people’s right to access documents which should be publicly available.”

The city has not indicated any support for filing a lawsuit at the union’s behest over the photos. LAPD did not return a request for comment about LAPPL’s lawsuit Wednesday.