Los Angeles County is trying to dam a journalist from acquiring the names and images of about 8,500 deputies and different sworn personnel employed by the Sheriff’s Division.
The authorized dispute facilities on a public information request filed in April 2023 by Cerise Citadel, an unbiased journalist. Citadel requested county officers to launch the names and official headshots of all deputies not working undercover, then sued final summer season after her request was denied, alleging a violation of California’s open information regulation.
Citadel has argued that releasing the photographs would enhance transparency and enhance the general public’s data of regulation enforcement exercise.
The division has maintained in courtroom filings that the photographs usually are not public information and that they “don’t considerably relate to the conduct of the general public’s enterprise.”
L.A. County Superior Court docket Decide James C. Chalfant rejected the county’s place, writing in a July choice that its legal professionals are “complicated the general public’s basic lack of entry … with whether or not official pictures are a public report.”
The county has additionally claimed that deputies’ private privateness, “private security and effectiveness of their roles” may very well be harmed by the discharge of the photographs.
Citadel’s battle with the Sheriff’s Division echoes the same case involving images of Los Angeles Police Division officers. In 2022, journalist Ben Camacho and the activist group Cease LAPD Spying Coalition posted departmental images and different details about LAPD officers, which they posted on-line in a searchable database dubbed Watch the Watchers.
The database provoked a furor inside the LAPD, which led to the town unsuccessfully suing in an try and claw again the images. Some officers additionally filed a lawsuit claiming they had been endangered by the discharge as a result of they labored undercover.
In response to questions on Citadel’s lawsuit, the Sheriff’s Division launched an announcement to The Occasions that stated it’s “deeply involved” in regards to the prospect of releasing 1000’s of deputy headshots.
“Such a broad request dangers compromising deputies’ privateness and security in an period of superior expertise and synthetic intelligence,” the assertion stated. “Moreover, such disclosures endanger undercover operations, discourage deputy recruitment amid nationwide hiring challenges, and undermines efforts to guard those that selflessly serve our communities.”
In his July choice, Chalfant directed L.A. County to launch the headshots with the caveat that any deputies who as soon as labored undercover may argue for his or her images’ exclusion from launch.
The choose wrote that the county had not demonstrated that there was a “particular security concern relating to any explicit officer,” including that “obscure issues don’t set up any particular hazard” to particular person officers.
Citadel is finest recognized for her protection of so-called deputy gangs with the Sheriff’s Division. Brash and outspoken at occasions, she has a big following on social media and beforehand reported for Vice Information and NPR earlier than going freelance.
Citadel stated in an interview with The Occasions that the county’s arguments for withholding the images don’t “meet the usual underneath state regulation.”
“They’re not presenting any actual arguments,” she stated. “All of these things is concept and hypothetical conditions that haven’t occurred.”
Citadel has additionally labored for the progressive information web site Knock LA, as did Camacho when he obtained the LAPD officer images that turned the Watch the Watchers database.
The 2 reporters are at present concerned in a lawsuit in opposition to Floor Sport LA, the nonprofit group that based Knock LA. They’ve sued for almost $5 million, claiming the group improperly profited off their work.
Floor Sport LA has alleged that the reporters tried to imagine management of the positioning, claiming they improperly took and used its trademarked title, its mailing checklist and different supplies.
Citadel’s path to acquiring the deputy images hit a velocity bump this month with the California 2nd District Court docket of Attraction. The Superior Court docket’s ruling in Citadel’s favor was paused pending a evaluation by the upper courtroom’s three-judge panel.
Citadel has argued in latest courtroom filings that the discharge of the photographs would “additional her reporting about deputies, specializing in deputies who had been concerned [in] shootings, misconduct, and deputy gangs.”
Susan Seager, an legal professional for Citadel, stated there’s no good purpose for the images to be withheld.
“We expect they only don’t need the general public to carry them accountable,” Seager stated. “They don’t need the general public to know what they’re doing.”
Citadel stated her case resonates past the courtroom, given the continuing raids throughout L.A. County by federal immigration brokers carrying face coverings and rising use by regulation enforcement of facial recognition and different applied sciences that pose a risk to residents’ privateness.
“Within the second that we’re in now, the place we’re seeing masked brokers ripping individuals off of the road and away from their households, I feel that this lawsuit turns into much more related,” she stated.
