"Karma: Identity Crisis at LAPD" by Daniel Guss
@TheGussReport on Twitter - The LAPD is in a genuinely catastrophic and dangerous situation, of which it is the sole architect with no good options.
It pains me to type this, but that’s karma, for you.
While wishing safety for them all, the flippant response comes from years of the LAPD’s unapologetic efforts to intimidate and retaliate for columns I wrote about it, LA politicians and a City Hall that fails, lies and cheats the rest of us.
Its crisis is a grander version of what it did to me, twice.
Let’s delve.
***
A few years back, a high-profile LAPD officer suggested I go on a ride along to see what officers encounter on a typical patrol shift.
I politely declined because I felt it would be dangerous. Not from the situations that we might encounter, but because I didn’t trust the LAPD, and this cop in particular.
My Spidey-sense was right, because a few years later, that officer, Cory Palka, was labeled “a compromised cop” by The Hollywood Reporter because he allegedly leaked information about a criminal investigation to, and regarding, his side-gig boss, CBS chief Les Moonves. But my distrust of the LAPD comes from far more than that, including but not limited to:
Captain Patricia Sandoval’s politically motivated harassment, like “suggesting” that I leave a City Hall meeting so she could comfortably yell at me in the presence of another officer, who would later accuse of her racism, sue the LAPD and win
Commander Andy Smith sitting directly behind me in a nearly empty City Hall room with at least a hundred other empty seats, unable to explain his presence at the meeting, while two members of his plainclothes goon squad ham-handedly attempted to blend in, each with a gun bulging beneath their untucked shirts when they raised their hands to ask awkwardly out-of-place questions
Senior Lead Officer Trent Berry bypassing two locks to unlawfully enter my garage without justification, for the legal activity of our feeding squirrels in the nearby park
In 2020, Detective Heather Herrera needing to speak with me about an Internal Affairs complaint I lodged. Despite my getting through to her, as of April ‘23, she has yet to call me back as promised, later falsely claiming she conducted a “complete and thorough investigation”
Officers Brian Hun and Tracy Banuelos falsifying dates on sworn court documents, until I busted them by comparing those dates to the postmark date on the envelope in which they mailed them
Detectives re-opening closed cases immediately upon my making public records requests so that it can withhold those records, and say “no comment, as this is an open and ongoing investigation,” as I detailed in my recent column, “LAPD Scrambles To Cover-up Its Cover-up”
And as I remind from-time-to-time, the LAPD twice retaliating against me by violating LA Superior Court website rule Rule 1.201 (Protection of Privacy) by posting there, and a year later on the LAPD portal, the DOJ background report that it required me to purchase in order to get my press pass. I remember the laissez-faire demeanor of the LAPD and a rogue deputy city attorney named Jonathan Peralta Bislig as they were in no rush to undo their handiwork, which confirmed that it was done with malicious intent.
I remember the panic of making an emergency request for Judge Raymond Santana to seal that record, which he swiftly approved.
I remember the LAPD coughing up a stack of cash in settlement, now totaling $21,819, and the State Bar of California reprimanding Bislig with a warning letter.
Neither apologized.
So I remember.
For Bislig’s lack of contrition, City Hall gadflies now relentlessly taunt him at meetings he attends, both for his State Bar reprimand as well as for a photo they found from his considerably leaner years, adrift on a watermelon floatie while hangin’ with the fellers.
For the LAPD’s lack of remorse, it was just a matter of time before karma kicked-in, as the mind wanders to Aesop and the idiomatic metaphor about getting a dose of one’s own medicine.
***
It was uncomfortably fascinating last week when newly elected LA City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto filed a superficial lawsuit as a legal hail Mary, so to speak, to try and reverse a genuinely catastrophic crisis of the LAPD’s own creation.
In response to a recent public records request, the LAPD released thousands of photos of, and information about, virtually all of its officers to Knock LA journalist Ben Camacho who, according to the LA Times, “subsequently provided the images to the Stop LAPD Spying Coalition, which published them online.”
The release may include information that could lead some activists to conclusions about hundreds of officers thought to work particularly dangerous undercover assignments. It is a severe, potentially deadly, crisis for its officers and their families. It could cause the already depleted LAPD to lose hundreds more officers from its ranks.
Unlike prior LAPD crises, this one is utterly irreversible, given that the content, once released, is believed to have been replicated innumerable times, just as the LAPD and City Attorney’s office unapologetically had hoped to achieve — twice — with my DOJ background report.
***
Not that Feldstein Soto’s lawsuit is going anywhere.
She had to file it to show at least an effort to the LA Police Protective League that she tried to undo the release of so much sensitive content.
Not bloody likely, as the Times’ column quotes leading voices in legal and journalism circles saying she has virtually no chance of succeeding:
“Legal experts uniformly rejected the lawsuit as baseless and ripe for dismissal under the 1st Amendment and other well-established legal protections for journalists.
‘This is a Hail Mary, desperation play by the city,’ said David Loy, legal director of the California First Amendment Coalition.
‘The city is on very weak legal grounds,’ said Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the UC Berkeley School of Law.
‘This isn’t even a close call,’ said Ken Paulson, former editor in chief of USA Today and now director of the Free Speech Center at Middle Tennessee State University.”
***
If this isn’t enough bad P.R. for the LAPD, then consider this.
Anti-LAPD activist Shakeer Rahman tweeted last week that while recently elected L.A. Mayor Karen Bass says that it is “egregious” for any LAPD officer’s identity to be public…..
…..he quotes from a 2020 LA Times article, reminding that in 1983, Bass was part of an ACLU lawsuit against the LAPD for spying on her and others during her life-long fascination with all things Fidel Castro and Cuba, something she didn’t renounce until she decided to run for mayor.
How’s that for thick irony?
In ‘83, activist Karen Bass and the ACLU sued the LAPD for spying on her and her peers.
In ‘23, Mayor Karen Bass declares that doing unto the LAPD, as it did to her, her peers, this column and countless others, is “egregious.”
Some might join that chorus, provided that the LAPD has a similar epiphany about its own misconduct and summon the courage (which it presently lacks) to apologize.
Until then, that’s karma, baby.
Follow me on The Twitters @TheGussReport and sign-up below for my free Substack newsletter. I’ll have updates and new features coming soon.
(Daniel Guss, MBA, was nominated for three 2022 LA Press Club awards and was a runner-up in 2021 and 2020. He is City Editor for the Mayor Sam network, and has been a featured contributor for CityWatchLA, KFI AM-640, iHeartMedia, 790-KABC, Cumulus Media, KCRW 89.9 FM, KRLA 870 AM, Huffington Post, Los Angeles Daily News, Los Angeles Magazine, Movieline Magazine, Emmy Magazine, Los Angeles Business Journal, Pasadena Star-News, Los Angeles Downtown News and the Los Angeles Times in its sports, opinion, entertainment and Sunday Magazine sections among other publishers.)