LAPD Undercover Officers' Names And Photos Posted Online

LOS ANGELES, CA — The Los Angeles Police Department scrambled to save undercover investigations and officers this week after their names and photographs were released to a police watchdog group and published online.

Now, the department's chief and constitutional policing director are under investigation for the SNAFU, the Los Angeles Times reported.

LAPD Chief Michel Moore offered his “deep apologies” to the undercover officers, who were not given advance notice of the disclosure, during a police commission meeting Tuesday.

The watchdog group Stop LAPD Spying Coalition posted more than 9,300 officers' information and photographs last Friday in a searchable online database. The group had assisted a public records request by a reporter for progressive news outlet Knock LA.

A group of Los Angeles Police Department officers, and the union representing them, filed a lawsuit Friday against the owner of a website that lists bounties for the killing of police officers, demanding that it be taken down immediately.

"Late last week, the LAPD mistakenly released the pictures, names and work locations of 9,000 officers through California Public Records Act requests, including those who work in sensitive assigned and undercover operations," according to a statement from the Los Angeles Police Protective League.

"As a result of the LAPD's negligence in releasing the pictures, names and work locations of officers, even those working in undercover operations, the owner of the `killer cops' website was able to download this sensitive information, post it online and place a bounty to be paid to anyone who kills a Los Angeles police officer," said Craig Lally, president of the LAPPL.

"This dangerous and abhorrent threat has further endangered every police officer, as well as their families, and we will be asking a judge to immediately intervene to protect our members," Lally said.

Attorneys for the LAPPL also served a cease-and-desist notice on Twitter and Google seeking the immediate removal of the "killer cop" website from the platforms.

"We certainly hope that Twitter and Google act with a sense of urgency to remove this threatening domestic terrorism site," Robert Rico, general counsel of the LAPPL, said in a statement. "The colossal blunder perpetuated by the LAPD in releasing this sensitive information must be met with a zero-tolerance approach by these two social media companies, which should include a lifetime ban of the owner of this site."

Tom Saggau, spokesman for LAPPL, said the lawsuit filed by the union is not against the coalition, but the owner of the "killer cop" website.

"We're looking into all websites to see legally what we can do," Jamie McBride, an LAPPL director, told City News Service. "However, the `killer cop' website was of the utmost important to our membership and for officers' safety."

A spokesman for LAPD Spying Coalition told Patch it was up to the department to protect the identities of undercover officers because the coalition has no way of knowing which officers are undercover.

"We released pictures thoroughly vetted by the department. They came through the city attorney’s office and the LAPD itself," said Hamid Khan, a spokesman for the LAPD Spying Coalition. "We wouldn’t know who was undercover."

The group published the names, photos, ethnicities and serial numbers of more 9,300 LAPD officers in an effort to help the community hold public servants accountable for their behavior on the job, Khan said.

"The LAPD are notorious for refusing to identify themselves when asked, and, by California law, they are supposed to do that," he added. "Many times they cover their badges and nameplates as well."

He pointed to various protests dating back to the George Floyd mass demonstrations in 2020 when unidentifiable officers dressed in riot gear have been filmed shoving or striking peaceful protesters.

The database includes information on each officer including name, ethnicity, rank, date of hire, badge number and division or bureau. It was not immediately clear how many of the officers listed were undercover.

Stop LAPD Spying Coalition opposes police intelligence-gathering and says the database should be used for “countersurveillance.”

“You can use it to identify officers who are causing harm in your community” the group wrote. “Police have vast information about all of us at their fingertips, yet they move in secrecy.”

The department's release of the undercover officers' names and photographs was inadvertent, the Times reported. While the city attorney's office determined the agency was legally required to turn over the records under California law, exemptions are often made for safety or investigative reasons.

“We will look to what steps or added steps can be taken to safeguard the personal identifiers of our membership,” Moore said Tuesday.

Police officials say the database's photos pose safety risks to officers who are currently undercover, as well as those who might work in that capacity in the future.

The Knock LA reporter, Ben Camacho, tweeted that he filed the records request as well as a lawsuit last year to get the photographs. The department had not previously raised the issue of officer safety in arguing against their release, he said.

“The only officers they are excluding from disclosure are undercover officers, which is expected,” a deputy city attorney wrote in a 2022 email to Camacho's attorney, according to a screenshot the journalist posted online.

The department's inspector general launched the investigation into Moore and constitutional policing director Liz Rhodes after the Los Angeles Police Protective League, the union that represents rank-and-file officers, filed a misconduct complaint against them Monday.

The president of the Los Angeles Board of Police Commissioners this week expressed frustration with the situation.

"I've got to tell you, I'm extremely concerned, disturbed and upset as I sit here today," William Briggs said during Tuesday's Police Commission meeting.

Briggs suggested that the organization's action was taken to cause harm to the officers and their families. He also requested Moore to report back to the executive committee with answers to better protect the information and the legal rights of LAPD's officers.

Commissioner Maria Lou Calanche, meanwhile, asked Moore to bring back a report regarding how the LAPD responds to public records requests, saying she wants to better understand the process.

"We need a new policy with respect to release of this information and I ask that you talk to the Office of Constitutional Policing to propose new policies with respect to release of any information that involves an officer or employee of the LAPD," Briggs said.

Moore said the information was released months ago through the California Public Records Act requests.

"Steps have already been taken to address the issues you've identified," Moore said. "One, an effort to reach out to all employees, and secondly for those involved who work in a sensitive assignment that we work with them to understand what steps can be taken to protect their identity."

The Associated Press, City News Service and Patch Staffer Paige Austin contributed to this report.