Release: LAPD Headshots (269 MB)

More than 9000 photographs of LAPD police officers, including undercovers. The police department is suing a reporter to censor the data.

Apr 06, 2023

A portion of the court case that argued for the release of LAPD headshots. The court document includes a screenshot of the Facebook page of LAPD Headquarters where 14 thumbnails out of 20 show headshots of LAPD officers, posted by the official Facebook page. — Screenshot of the court documents filed by the reporter that successfully argued for the release of the headshots. Twitter: Ben Camacho

Over 9,000 headshots of officers in the Los Angeles Police Department, which the Department released to Knock LA reporter Ben Camacho, and then went to court to attempt to censor.

benjamin @bencamach0

RAW DATA DUMP: Here's 9,310 of LAPD's headshots. All of these are a public record. I re-uploaded to my cloud in a more stable way. The first folder was buggy with so many files in it. All of these are public record. 1drv.ms/u/s!AulPP9t9hD…

benjamin @bencamach0

FILED: Lawsuit against LAPD for violating the California Public Records Act. This comes from a request they denied when I asked for employee headshots. Check out the lawsuit: https://t.co/7fVlMQxsaK @LAPDHQ @sh4keer https://t.co/dSOs8hJU4g

These headshots are the basis of the Stop LAPD Spying Coalition’s Watch the Watchers search tool. Stop LAPD Spying describe the data:

We helped file a lawsuit against the City of Los Angeles exposing that these photos were readily available and a matter of public record. In response to the lawsuit, LAPD turned over more than 9,000 headshot photographs. We then filed additional Public Records Act requests to both LAPD and the City Controller to obtain further details on every officer.

From the Los Angeles Times:

In a still-unfolding drama that has reached its top ranks, the Los Angeles Police Department accidentally released the names and photos of numerous undercover officers to a watchdog group that posted them on its website.

The dataset allegedly includes the photos of 300 undercover police. These “300 undercover officers launched a lawsuit against the city and LAPD, calling the disclosure “catastrophic negligence”, according to the Daily Dot.

From the Associated Press:

The database includes information on each officer including name, ethnicity, rank, date of hire, badge number and division or bureau.

The City of Los Angeles is now suing Camacho to try to censor the data. The data is already public in multiple places.

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First page of a legal letter from the City of Los Angeles to the lawyers of Knock LA reporter Ben Camacho. The letter reads, under the letterhead of the City: Office of the Los Angeles City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto March 30, 2023 Shakeer Rahman, Esq. LAW OFFICE OF SHAKEER RAHMAN 838 East 6th Street Los Angeles, CA 90021 Colleen Flynn, Esq. LAW OFFICE OF COLLEEN FLYNN 3435 Wilshire Boulevard, Suite 2910 Los Angeles, CA 90010 VIA CERTIFIED MAIL - RETURN RECEIPT REQUESTED Re: Demand for Return of Records Pursuant to Government Code Section 6204.2 Dear. Ms. Flynn and Mr. Rahman: The Los Angeles City Attorney's Office ("Office") has reasonable grounds to believe that records as further described below belonging to the Los Angeles Police Department ("LAPD") are in the possession of your client, Ben Camacho, without authorization by law to possess those records. Pursuant to Government Code section 6204.2, this letter serves as a written notice demanding that your client return the records to the LAPD as required by the terms of the statute. Our Office is authorized to take legal action to recover the records if you fail to respond in writing within the required time or do not adequately demonstrate that the records do not belong to the LAPD. This Office entered into the Settlement Agreement and Release (the "Agreement") with your client, Ben Camacho, in resolution of his California Public Records Act ("CPRA") (Gov. Code § 7920.000 et seq.), request (Request #21-8914). This Agreement City Hall East - 200 N. Main Street 6th Floor Los Angeles, CA 90012 Tel: (213) 978-4681 — From Ben Camacho’s Twitter feed.

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