Los Angeles Wants a Reporter to Pay for the LAPD’s Mistake

The accidental release by the Los Angeles Police Department of thousands of officers’ photo headshots – including, inadvertently, those of police working undercover – has resulted in a spiderwebbing series of hostile legal actions drawing in the LAPD, an angry police union, an even angrier group of undercover officers, press advocates, City Attorney Heidi Feldstein Soto, and Mayor Karen Bass. Finger pointing abounds. Yet, the party arguably at the center of the controversy is Knock LA journalist Ben Camacho, now being sued by the city to recover the costs of its own clerical error.
 
Camacho received the photos in 2022 pursuant to a California Public Records Act request. While the LAPD initially fought back against providing headshots of active-duty officers, they eventually capitulated following a settlement agreement in which they assented to providing all available photos except for those of officers serving in an undercover capacity.
 
Except, they provided those, too.
 
Soon after, at least two groups of police officers sued the LAPD. And in April, the LAPD filed suit against Camacho to prevent publication of the more than 9,300 images. That’s where press advocates came into the picture.
 
As the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press pointed out in its amicus brief, “the Supreme Court of the United States has long recognized prior restraints as the ‘most serious and the least tolerable infringement on First Amendment rights’ because they are ‘an immediate and irreversible sanction’ not only ‘chill[ing]’ speech but also ‘freez[ing]’ it, at least for a time. This constitutional harm is magnified when the government seeks the removal of already published information.”
 
Indeed, the Court has on multiple occasions made it clear that when the government releases information, even if accidentally, it can’t then attempt to gag the press to prevent publication. That established legal reasoning apparently didn’t sway the Los Angeles Superior Court, which ruled for the City of Los Angeles. Camacho has since appealed.
 
Another twist in this saga occurred more recently when the city sued Camacho for indemnification. As Freedom of the Press Foundation advocacy director Seth Stern said, the “city has hit the trifecta of anti-press First Amendment violations: first, demanding journalists give back documents the government released, second, censoring journalists from publishing information, and now, holding journalists financially liable for truthful publications ...”
 
State intimidation of the press is nothing new, but it seems to be taking on a troubling new tenor. At Protect The 1st, we’ve documented a series of recent efforts by power-drunk officials to punish reporters for committing acts of journalism. In Alabama, a small town publisher and reporter were arrested for reporting on a grand jury leak about the alleged mishandling of COVID relief funds. In Kansas, police raided the Marion County Record in an effort to track down an informant who revealed information about a local restauranteur’s DUI. In that instance, the paper’s 98-year-old co-owner died a day after her home was raided.
 
The LAPD debacle is further evidence of declining respect for the First Amendment and a free press. The City of Los Angeles should cease its legal gesticulating, own up to its mistake, and move on. Honest reporters should not pay for government slip-ups.