Global Courant 2023-05-18 06:10:29
A gunman opened fire on a Los Angeles Police Department detective who worked in an undercover surveillance unit following a potential suspect on the 110 freeway on Tuesday morning, authorities said.
LAPD Captain Kelly Muniz said the detective was in a vehicle at 110 near Gage Avenue in South Los Angeles when gunfire broke out around 10:45 a.m.
The shooting was unrelated to the person being followed, and the detective — who was dressed to blend in with the civilian population and had no outward indications that he was a police officer — was not injured, Muniz said. However, the unmarked vehicle was hit by gunfire, she said.
While Muniz declined to identify the detective, two law enforcement sources not authorized to discuss the shooting said he is part of the Robbery-Homicide Division’s Special Investigation Section, which tracks potential suspects in violent, often serial, crimes.
Muniz said two suspects have been taken into custody in connection with the shooting, though no one has yet been booked.
A motive has yet to be determined, authorities said.
Despite no immediate evidence to support this, speculation quickly spread among LAPD personnel about whether the detective’s coverage may have been exposed by the recent online publication of a database of LAPD photos, including those employed are in the Special Investigation Section of SIS.
City attorneys filed a lawsuit in April against Knock LA journalist Ben Camacho and the Stop LAPD Spying Coalition, saying the release of the officers’ names, photos and serial numbers in response to a request for public records and related lawsuits was “unintentional”.
They argued that publishing the images of agents serving undercover assignments posed a security risk. After receiving the photos, Camacho gave them to the Stop LAPD Spying Coalition, which she published online in an accessible database.
In one of several statements filed by the city, LAPD Captain Jonathan Tippet, who oversees the Robbery and Homicide Division, wrote that the publication had revealed the photos of undercover officers, including those of the SIS unit. Tippet said the footage “permanently endangers the officers’ lives” and “jeopardizes the investigation of important criminal cases.”
Lawyers for the Camacho called it a “thinly veiled attempt to silence him and other journalists” who report on law enforcement and “protect the Los Angeles Police Department from any accountability and transparency.”
A judge last month rejected a first attempt by the City of Los Angeles to force the return of more than 9,000 photos and names of LAPD officers by denying a request for a temporary restraining order that had banned Camacho and its watchdog group. would have stopped doing anything with the data.
The judge said the case was essentially about prior restraint and that the city would need to address this and broader First Amendment issues before making any decisions.
