Over 300 Undercover L.A. Police Sue City over Leak to Watchdog

Over 300 undercover Los Angeles Police Department officers are suing the city for leaking their photographs to a watchdog group.

As the Los Angeles Times noted last month, Mayor Karen Bass expressed outrage when it was discovered that the city had accidentally leaked the images of hundreds of officers, jeopardizing their investigations — and their lives.

This is an unacceptable breach that puts the lives of our officers and their families at risk.

I expect there to be a full accounting of how this happened and a clear plan to prevent this sort of incident from happening again.https://t.co/aIlXBNnqBP

— Mayor Karen Bass (@MayorOfLA) March 26, 2023

The Times noted:

The controversy began late last week when the Stop LAPD Spying Coalition launched a searchable online database — called Watch the Watchers — of more than 9,300 city police officers’ photos, complete with their names, ethnicity, rank, date of hire, division/bureau and badge numbers. The group called the site the first of its kind in the country.

Stop LAPD Spying officials said they believe police officers are not entitled to the same expectation of privacy as other residents because of their status as civil servants. They said in an interview about the site that what they published was obtained through a public records request by a civilian journalist and turned over by the LAPD.

Department leaders said over the weekend that the release of pictures of officers working in an undercover capacity was inadvertent, and they have launched an internal investigation to determine how the mistake occurred.

While Mayor Bass vowed to hold those responsible accountable, hundreds of police officers are not waiting. The UK Daily Mail reported:

More than 300 undercover Los Angeles police officers filed legal claims against the city and police department Tuesday after their names and photographs were released to a technology watchdog group that posted them online.

…

It comes just a week after an LAPD union announced it is suing a website called killercop.com, claiming it put bounties on officers’ heads after their pictures and personal details were released to the public.

Hundreds of undercover officers were included in the database, although it’s not clear exactly how many because the database doesn’t specify which officers work undercover.

It is unclear how the accidental release occurred, and who was responsible for the damaging security lapse.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the new biography, Rhoda: ‘Comrade Kadalie, You Are Out of Order’. He is also the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.