Los Angeles will pay $300,000 to cover the legal fees of a local journalist and a technology watchdog group sued by the city for publishing photos and names of hundreds of undercover officers obtained through a public records request, the journalist’s attorney said Monday. The photos’ release prompted backlash from Los Angeles police officers and their union, alleging that it compromised safety for those working undercover and in other sensitive assignments, such as investigations involving gangs, drugs and sex traffickers, The Associated Press reports. The city attorney’s lawsuit against Ben Camacho, a journalist for progressive news outlet Knock LA at the time, and the watchdog group Stop LAPD Spying Coalition drew condemnation from media rights experts and a coalition of newsrooms, as an attack on free speech and press freedoms.
Camacho had submitted a public records request for the LAPD’s roster pf 9,300 officers in addition to their photographs and information about their ethnicity, rank, date of hire, badge number, and division or bureau. City officials had not sought an exemption for the undercover officers and inadvertently released their photos and personal data to Camacho. The watchdog group used the records to make an online searchable database called Watch the Watchers. In April 2023, the city attorney's office filed a lawsuit to reclaim the photographs that had already been publicly posted. The settlement came after the city approached Camacho and Stop LAPD Spying last month to go into mediation over the case, said Camacho’s lawyer, Susan Seager. “It shows that the city is acknowledging that ... when the city gives a reporter some documents, they can’t turn around and sue the reporter and demand they give them back after the fact,” Seager said.