Los Angeles Police Department

The Press Freedom Project at UC Irvine Law School sued the City of Los Angeles for refusing to release body camera tapes of its officers violently beating Black Lives Matter protesters outside LA Mayor Eric Garcetti’s mayoral mansion.

The law clinic filed the lawsuit on behalf of Knock LA, an independent news organization, and the First Amendment Coalition. The lawsuit alleges that the Los Angeles Police Department’s refusal to disclose the tapes violates California’s 2019 police body cam transparency law.

“The LAPD is refusing to let the public see the tapes of officers hitting two non-violent women in the head with batons outside the mayor’s home,” said Susan E. Seager, director of UC Irvine School of Law’s Press Freedom Project.

“The Los Angeles City Council, Mayor Garcetti, the Police Commission, and City Attorney Mike Feuer should step in and order the LAPD to release these body cam tapes,” Seager said.

UC Irvine law student Leon He, who helped prepare the lawsuit, said that California Public Records Act should be respected by all government agencies. “Accountability through disclosure of police activity to the public is a right that police departments are bound to respect under the California Public Records Act,” he said.

The lawsuit alleges that on the morning of December 6, 2020, two groups of officers violently attacked non-violent protesters who were advocating that President Biden not appoint the mayor to a cabinet post, citing his failure to reform the LAPD. Garcetti’s wife, Amy Wakeland, made more than 80 complaints about the Black Lives Matter protests outside the family’s home during the months before the police action, according to the LA Times.

For journalists who cover policing in their communities, access to such recordings is crucial for keeping readers informed and holding law enforcement agencies accountable.

“Once again, we are forced to sue to do our jobs and give the public transparency,” said Cerise Castle, a Los Angeles journalist with Knock LA who faced blanket denials in response to her requests. “It begs the questions – what are they trying to hide, and for whose benefit?”

“When officers hurt people, the public has a right to the full story, not just the police department’s spin,” said David Loy, legal director of the First Amendment Coalition. “LAPD’s stonewalling is just one example of statewide resistance to police transparency.”

In recent years, the California Legislature has passed laws to pierce the veil of secrecy that for too long shielded police misconduct and use of force from public scrutiny. In recognition of the importance of press and public access to body cam, dash cam, and other recordings of violent use of force, lawmakers passed AB 748, which took effect in 2019 as part of the California Public Records Act, requiring disclosure of any audio or video recording of “critical incidents.” Critical incidents include any force that causes “great bodily injury.”

Secrecy, the lawsuit explains, can only be justified one year after the incident if there is an active administrative or criminal investigation, but the LAPD has not claimed that there is any such active investigation. No one was charged with any crime during the LAPD’s action against protesters on the morning of December 6, 2020, the lawsuit said.

The lawsuit asks the Los Angeles Superior Court to immediately direct LAPD to disclose the records sought by FAC and Knock LA and issue declaratory judgment that the records are subject to disclosure under state law.

The lawsuit alleges that LAPD officers inflicted “great bodily injury” on some protesters when breaking up the protest on December 6, 2020 incident, citing the protesters’ civil rights lawsuit against the city, Akili v. City of Los Angeles. Protester Emily Allers says in the lawsuit that an officer struck her in the back of the head with a baton, knocking her unconscious, and protester Shannon Thomas alleges in the lawsuit that another officer hit her in the face with a baton so hard that her teeth were loosened. Both women went to the hospital for treatment for their head injuries.

About the Press Freedom Project

The Press Freedom Project is a program of the Intellectual Property, Arts, and Technology Clinic at the University of California, Irvine, School of Law. The program teaches law students practical legal skills by pairing them with independent journalists and government watchdog groups and providing these clients with free legal services.

UCI law school students filed a civil rights lawsuit on behalf of two journalists that accuses the Los Angeles Police Department of violating the journalists’ First Amendment rights by arresting the journalists for simply doing their jobs.

Law students Brian Fiumara and Zoe Vikstrom co-authored the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles on May 9, 2022 on behalf of clinic clients Jon Peltz and Kate Gallagher, reporters for the independent news website Knock LA. The students to press freedom work in the law school’s clinical program.

The two journalists were arrested on March 21, 2021 for allegedly failing to obey police orders to leave the area near Echo Park Lake in Los Angeles before police began evicting unhoused persons from their tents along the lake. The city attorney, however, declined to file charges against them.

“Kate and Jon were arrested while standing on a public sidewalk, peacefully filming police and reporting to the public about a public protest and police actions, which is activity completely protected by the First Amendment,” said UC Irvine law school Professor Susan E. Seager, who directs the Press Freedom practice in the law school’s Intellectual Property, Arts, and Technology Clinic.

“The LAPD treated Jon and Kate like criminals because Knock LA is not part of the establishment press. But the First Amendment – and the LAPD’s own policy – do not require reporters to work for the mainstream media to be protected by the First Amendment,” Professor Seager said.

The lawsuit seeks monetary damages and training for police officers dealing with the press at protests.

Police detained other reporters from more well-known media outlets, including a Los Angeles Times reporter, but let those reporters go and did not arrest them, the newspaper reported.

Since 2020, police have assaulted journalists across the country more than 600 times and made more than 200 arrests of journalists – with most of the arrests in 2021 and 2022 coming during coverage of police evicting unhoused people from their encampments, the lawsuit said.

Mr. Peltz said officers were hostile to the press at the scene. “It was clear that we were arrested because the LAPD did not want anyone – especially the media – to observe their egregious and unlawful conduct at Echo Park Lake. The department behaved with brazen lawlessness to silence voices critical of the department,” Mr. Peltz said.

“A free press is crucial for holding public agencies like the LAPD accountable. The police should not be allowed to arrest journalists for reporting on a protest against their department’s own conduct,” Ms. Gallagher said.

On the night of the arrests, Los Angeles police officers issued a dispersal order to protesters and reporters on a public sidewalk about 150 feet from the lake, but the officers then immediately trapped and arrested protesters, the two Knock LA reporters and other independent journalists, and would not allow any of them to leave, the lawsuit said.

The lawsuit alleges that the LAPD has “a longstanding policy, custom and practice of obstructing, targeting, and retaliating against members of the press for exercising their First Amendment rights to gather news regarding police officer activity in public places, particularly during protests against police brutality.”

The Press Freedom clinic provides free legal services to independent journalists, independent news organizations, and press advocacy organizations.

Knock LA is a non-profit, independent news website focusing on local law enforcement misconduct and government corruption since 2017. The website published last year a 15-part series about the history of violent gangs of deputies within the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department, and both the LAPD and Sheriff’s Department have released documents showing that the departments keep track of Knock LA’s reporting about their agencies.

The clinic is co-counsel with UC Irvine law school grad Shaleen Shanbhag, who is a partner at the civil rights law firm Hadsell Stormer in Pasadena, California.