Press groups accuse LAPD of violating judge's ban on targeting journalists covering protests
The Aug. 13 complaint, filed by the First Amendment Coalition and attorneys representing the Los Angeles Press Club and the independent media outlet Status Coup, said the department's actions on Aug. 8 showed a 'blatant disregard for the First Amendment' and a restraining order the court issued in July.
USA TODAY reached out to the city and the police department for comment and had not yet received a response by publication.
The groups are suing the city and the LAPD over the treatment of journalists covering protests surrounding federal immigration enforcement.
The restraining order, which was initially set for two weeks but later extended, said the department couldn't use less-lethal munitions against journalists who aren't posing a threat, bar a journalist from entering or remaining in closed areas, assault or obstruct journalists, or arrest journalists in a closed area for violating curfew orders, obstructing law enforcement officers or not dispersing while 'gathering, receiving or processing information.'
The contempt motion alleges LAPD officers violated that order during what they described as a 'peaceful' immigration protest on Aug. 8.
The officers formed a line and started moving toward the protesters around 9 p.m., the complaint said.
'Then, with no warning and no dispersal order, the officers started shouting 'move back' as they quickly advanced, shoving the assembled group and striking them with batons,' it said.
There was subsequently no place for journalists to work 'without being assaulted by the LAPD,' the groups argued in their new court filing. Those who insisted they had a right to be there were 'ignored' or 'told ... to wait,' the complaint said.
Sean Beckner-Carmitchel, a freelance journalist who was also injured while covering an immigration protest in June, asked to talk to a department supervisor or spokesperson and was told to move back. Upon repeating his request, 'an LAPD officer shoved him and hit him in the ribs with a baton, causing bruising and pain,' according to the complaint.
Beckner-Carmitchel continued to ask, in line with directions in the court's order, to speak to a supervisor.
'The response was blank stares except for one officer who responded: 'That's not important right now,'' the complaint said.
After a dispersal order was issued, the department arrested the approximately 20 remaining protesters and journalists. Officers put the group in zip-ties and 'held them against the wall for more than an hour,' the complaint said.
Photojournalist Nicholas Stern was also 'struck in the face' and independent journalist Tina Berg was hit with a baton in an incident that 'ripped open the distal phalanx" of her little finger, according to the complaint.
Most journalists were released at the scene, but two – Nate Gowdy and Carrie Shreck – were taken to a jail near downtown Los Angeles, the complaint said.
Among other requests, the complaint asks the judge to find the defendants to be in contempt of court and modify its previous orders to 'expressly encompass use of batons and any other type of force.'
A group of press and civil liberties groups also sued the Department of Homeland Security and DHS Secretary Kristi Noem in June over what they described as federal officers' unconstitutional actions against journalists in Los Angeles.
A preliminary injunction hearing is scheduled for Aug. 25.
BrieAnna Frank is a First Amendment reporter at USA TODAY. Reach her at bjfrank@usatoday.com.
USA TODAY's coverage of First Amendment issues is funded through a collaboration between the Freedom Forum and Journalism Funding Partners. Funders do not provide editorial input.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Los Angeles Times
7 hours ago
- Los Angeles Times
How an LAPD internal affairs detective became known as ‘The Grim Reaper'
In a police department with a long tradition of colorful nicknames — from 'Jigsaw John' to 'Captain Hollywood' — LAPD Sgt. Joseph Lloyd stands out. 'The Grim Reaper.' At least that's what some on the force have taken to calling the veteran Internal Affairs detective, usually out of earshot. According to officers who have found themselves under investigation by Lloyd, he seems to relish the moniker and takes pleasure in ending careers, even if it means twisting facts and ignoring evidence. But Lloyd's backers maintain his dogged pursuit of the truth is why he has been entrusted with some of the department's most politically sensitive and potentially embarrassing cases. Lloyd, 52, declined to comment. But The Times spoke to more than half a dozen current or former police officials who either worked alongside him or fell under his scrutiny. During the near decade that he's been in Internal Affairs, Lloyd has investigated cops of all ranks. When a since-retired LAPD officer was suspected of running guns across the Mexican border, the department turned to Lloyd to bust him. In 2020, when it came out that members of the elite Metropolitan Division were falsely labeling civilians as gang members in a police database, Lloyd was tapped to help unravel the mess. And when a San Fernando Valley anti-gang squad was accused in 2023 of covering up shakedowns of motorists, in swooped the Reaper again. Recently he was assigned to a department task force looking into allegations of excessive force by police against activists who oppose the government's immigration crackdown. At the LAPD, as in most big-city police departments across the country, Internal Affairs investigators tend to be viewed with suspicion and contempt by their colleagues. They usually try to operate in relative anonymity. Not Lloyd. The 24-year LAPD veteran has inadvertently become the face of a pitched debate over the LAPD's long-maligned disciplinary system. The union that represents most officers has long complained that well-connected senior leaders get favorable treatment. Others counter that rank-and-file cops who commit misconduct are routinely let off the hook. A recent study commissioned by Chief Jim McDonnell found that perceived unfairness in internal investigations is a 'serious point of contention' among officers that has contributed to low morale. McDonnell has said he wants to speed up investigations and better screen complaints, but efforts by past chiefs and the City Council to overhaul the system have repeatedly stalled. Sarah Dunster, 40, was a sergeant working in the LAPD's Hollywood division in 2021 when she learned she was under investigation for allegedly mishandling a complaint against one of her officers, who was accused of groping a woman he arrested. Dunster said she remembers being interviewed by Lloyd, whose questions seemed designed to trip her up and catch her in a lie, rather than aimed at hearing her account of what happened, she said. Some of her responses never made it into Lloyd's report, she said. 'He wanted to fire me,' she said. Dunster was terminated over the incident, but she appealed and last week a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge granted a reprieve that allows her to potentially get her job back. Others who have worked with Lloyd say he is regarded as a savvy investigator who is unfairly being vilified for discipline decisions that are ultimately made by the chief of police. A supervisor who oversaw Lloyd at Internal Affairs — and requested anonymity because they are not authorized to speak to the media — described him as smart, meticulous and 'a bulldog.' 'Joe just goes where the facts lead him and he doesn't have an issue asking the hard questions,' the supervisor said. On more than one occasion, the supervisor added, Internal Affairs received complaints from senior department officials who thought that Lloyd didn't show them enough deference during interrogations. Other supporters point to his willingness to take on controversial cases to hold officers accountable, even while facing character attacks from his colleagues, their attorneys and the powerful Los Angeles Police Protective League. Officers have sniped about his burly build, tendency to smile during interviews and other eccentricities. He wears two watches — one on each wrist, a habit he has been heard saying he picked up moonlighting as a high school lacrosse referee. But he has also been criticized as rigid and uncompromising, seeming to fixate only on details that point to an officer's guilt. People he has grilled say that when he doesn't get the answer he's looking for, he has a Columbo-esque tendency to ask the same question in different ways in an attempt to elicit something incriminating. And instead of asking officers to clarify any discrepancies in their statements, Lloyd automatically assumes they are lying, some critics said. Mario Munoz, a former LAPD Internal Affairs lieutenant who opened a boutique firm that assists officers fighting employment and disciplinary cases, recently released a scathing 60-page report questioning what he called a series of troubling lapses in the LAPD's 2023 investigation of the Mission gang unit. The report name-drops Lloyd several times. The department accused several Mission officers of stealing brass knuckles and other items from motorists in the San Fernando Valley, and attempting to hide their actions from their supervisors by switching off their body-worn cameras. Munoz said he received calls from officers who said Lloyd had violated their due process rights, which potentially opens the city up to liability. Several have since lodged complaints against Lloyd with the department. He alleged Lloyd ultimately singled out several 'scapegoats to shield higher-level leadership from scrutiny.' Until he retired from the LAPD in 2014, Munoz worked as both an investigator and an auditor who reviewed landmark internal investigations into the beating of Black motorist Rodney King and the Rampart gang scandal in which officers were accused of robbing people and planting evidence, among other crimes. Munoz now echoes a complaint from current officers that Internal Affairs in general, and Lloyd in particular, operate to protect the department's image at all costs. 'He's the guy that they choose because he doesn't question management,' Munoz said of Lloyd. In the Mission case, Munoz pointed to inconsistent outcomes for two captains who oversaw the police division accused of wrongdoing: One was transferred and later promoted, while another is fighting for his job amid accusations that he failed to rein in his officers. Two other supervisors — Lt. Mark Garza and Sgt. Jorge 'George' Gonzalez — were accused by the department of creating a 'working environment that resulted in the creation of a police gang,' according to an internal LAPD report. Both Garza and Gonzalez have sued the city, alleging that even though they reported the wrongdoing as soon as they became aware of it, they were instead punished by the LAPD after the scandal became public. According to Munoz's report and interviews with department sources, Lloyd was almost single-handedly responsible for breaking the Mission case open. It began with a complaint in late December 2022 made by a motorist who said he was pulled over and searched without reason in a neighboring patrol area. Lloyd learned that the officers involved had a pattern of not documenting traffic stops — exploiting loopholes in the department's auditing system for dashboard and body cameras. The more Lloyd dug, the more instances he uncovered of these so-called 'ghost stops.' A few months later, undercover Internal Affairs detectives began tailing the two involved officers — something that Garza and Gonzalez both claimed they were kept in the dark about. As of last month, four officers involved had been fired and another four had pending disciplinary hearings where their jobs hung in the balance. Three others resigned before the department could take action. The alleged ringleader, Officer Alan Carrillo, faces charges of theft and 'altering, planting or concealing evidence.' Court records show he was recently offered pretrial diversion by L.A. County prosecutors, which could spare him jail but require him to stop working in law enforcement. Carrillo has pleaded not guilty to the charges. In an interview with The Times, Gonzalez — the sergeant who is facing termination — recalled a moment during a recorded interrogation that he found so troubling he contacted the police union director Jamie McBride, to express concern. McBride, he said, went to Lloyd's boss, then-deputy chief Michael Rimkunas, seeking Lloyd's removal from Internal Affairs. The move failed. Lloyd kept his job. Rimkunas confirmed the exchange with the police union leader in an interview with The Times. He said that while he couldn't discuss Lloyd specifically due to state personnel privacy laws, in general the department assigns higher-profile Internal Affairs cases to detectives with a proven track record. Gonzalez, though, can't shake the feeling that Lloyd crossed the line in trying to crack him during an interrogation. He said that at one point while Lloyd was asking questions, the detective casually flipped over his phone, which had been sitting on the table. On the back of the protective case, Gonzalez said, was a grim reaper sticker. 'And then as he turned it he looked at me as if to get a reaction from me,' Gonzalez said. 'It was definitely a way of trying to intimidate me for sure.'
USA Today
9 hours ago
- USA Today
What happens if gay marriage is overturned? The question alone is horrifying.
The more we talk about gay marriage as if it's something that could be questioned legally, the more the public will begin to question whether Obergefell was a mistake. A recent appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court seeks to overturn the landmark 2015 case Obergefell v. Hodges, which legalized same-sex marriage nationwide, giving the entire LGBTQ+ community reason to be fearful – even if the case is unlikely to be heard by the court. Kim Davis, a former county clerk from Kentucky, filed a petition in late July asking the court to appeal a decision that she must pay $360,000 in damages and legal fees for refusing to issue a gay couple a marriage license after the Obergefell decision came down. According to the appeal, this infringed upon Davis' First Amendment right to freedom of religion. There are a variety of reasons gay marriage is likely safe despite this appeal, including changing opinions on the court, public support for same-sex marriage and the 2022 Respect For Marriage Act. It doesn't change the fact that the very notion of this right being overturned is a reminder to the LGBTQ+ community that our rights are dependent upon the whims of politicians and judges, and could easily disappear. I don't trust this Supreme Court to leave same-sex marriage alone In 2015, Davis wound up in jail for six days for contempt of court when she refused to grant a marriage license to gay couples in Rowan County, Kentucky. One couple who were refused a license, David Moore and David Ermold, sued Davis for violating their constitutional right to marry. Moore and Ermold were awarded $50,000 each in damages, plus $260,000 for legal fees. Davis attempted to appeal the ruling with the 6th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals but was denied this March. She then sent her appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court in July, which is how we ended up here. Mat Staver, Davis' lawyer, told Fox News he believes this case will be heard by the nation's highest court based on the fact that three of the dissenting justices from Obergefell – Chief Justice John Roberts, Justice Clarence Thomas and Justice Samuel Alito – are still on the court. Other legal scholars aren't so sure that five justices are willing to overrule the case. Robbie Kaplan, a lawyer who argued in defense of LGBTQ+ rights in front of the U.S. Supreme Court in 2013 in a ruling that eventually paved the way for Obergefell, told Axios it would cause a lot more legal problems than it's worth. "It's not just a recipe for administrative chaos," Kaplan said. "It also would result in an almost indescribable amount of (needless) suffering and heartache." Opinion: I was the named 'opposition' in Obergefell v. Hodges. I've never been happier to lose. I'm skeptical that the very court that sent abortion rights back to the states cares about the legal complications that a ruling like this could cause. In the 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization decision, Thomas even issued a concurrent opinion saying he believed Obergefell should be reconsidered. The Supreme Court has also asked Moore and Ermold to respond to Davis' petition, which hints at the possibility that this case could be considered by the court. Kim Davis' petition reminds us our rights are revocable Davis' appeal isn't the only attack on gay marriage since President Donald Trump returned to the White House and Republicans took the majority in Congress. Resolutions were introduced in five states that would have formally asked the Supreme Court to review Obergefell. In two of those states, Idaho and North Dakota, the resolutions passed the House of Representatives before failing in the Senate. While these measures were unsuccessful, it's a sign of growing discontent among Republican politicians with the legality of same-sex marriage. In June, the Southern Baptist Convention voted for a resolution to ask the court to reconsider gay marriage. A denomination may have no legal authority in our secular government, but the resolution signals that we should be worried. Opinion: I told you GOP would come for marriage. Southern Baptists just proved my point. The fact that these resolutions were even introduced is scary for the LGBTQ+ community. It's a sign that there are still people out there who think we shouldn't be able to marry the people we love, that our rights as couples should differ from the rights of straight couples merely based on a few verses in the Bible. It's a reminder that the rights we fought for years to gain can be reversed, that all it takes is a conservative shift in government to send us back to a time before legal gay marriage. What would happen if gay marriage were overturned? Thankfully, Democrats in 2022 passed the Respect For Marriage Act, which says that same-sex and interracial marriages must be recognized by the federal government and every state, even if Obergefell were to fall. However, the loss of the 2015 Supreme Court ruling would affect future generations of LGBTQ+ people looking to get married. If the Obergefell ruling were overturned tomorrow, same-sex marriage would become illegal in 32 states that have constitutional and/or legislative bans on marriage equality. This would affect more than half of the LGBTQ+ people in the United States. Per a May 2025 Gallup poll, 68% of Americans say same-sex marriages should be legally recognized. While this is a safe majority of people, support is down from a high of 71% in 2023 – signaling a potential shift in the acceptability of gay marriage nationwide. Opinion alerts: Get columns from your favorite columnists + expert analysis on top issues, delivered straight to your device through the USA TODAY app. Don't have the app? Download it for free from your app store. I'm also not one to believe that public support will sway the justices from hearing a case. After all, abortion rights were also widely popular, but that didn't stop the court from sending legality back to the states. Gay marriage is not going to disappear tomorrow. This does mean, however, that gay people are once again being reminded that their rights are dependent on a handful of people and the opinions of politicians and can easily be stripped away. We've already witnessed how the trans community has lost rights in a matter of months. The more we talk about gay marriage as if it's something that could be questioned legally, the more the public will begin to question whether Obergefell was a mistake. Even if it seems unlikely that the Supreme Court will take up this review, the fact that an appeal was even introduced is bringing anxiety to the LGBTQ+ community – and it should be taken seriously. Follow USA TODAY columnist Sara Pequeño on X, formerly Twitter: @sara__pequeno You can read diverse opinions from our USA TODAY columnists and other writers on the Opinion front page, on X, formerly Twitter, @usatodayopinion and in our Opinion newsletter.
The Hill
19 hours ago
- The Hill
Judge blocks FTC probe into progressive media watchdog
A federal judge temporarily blocked the Federal Trade Commission's (FTC) investigation into Media Matters for America on Friday, arguing the agency is likely in violation of the progressive media watchdog's free speech rights. U.S. District Judge Sparkle L. Sooknanan, an appointee of former President Biden, ordered a preliminary injunction against the investigation, which was opened in May. 'It should alarm all Americans when the Government retaliates against individuals or organizations for engaging in constitutionally protected public debate. And that alarm should ring even louder when the Government retaliates against those engaged in newsgathering and reporting,' Sooknanan said in the 48-page ruling. 'This case presents a straightforward First Amendment violation.' The FTC opened the probe into Media Matters in late May over whether the progressive media group improperly coordinated with advertisers. The anti-trust agency demanded correspondence between Media Matters and advertisers, along with its communications with watchdog groups. In response, Media Matters sued the FTC in June to block the agency's probe, contending the investigation is an example of unlawful retaliation. Media Matters president Angelo Carusone said in a statement Friday that the court's ruling shows the 'importance of fighting over folding, which far too many are doing when confronted with intimidation from the Trump administration.' Carusone said the case is not 'just about the campaign to punish and silence Media Matters, however. It is a critical test for whether the courts will allow any administration – from any political party – to bully media and non-profit organizations through illegal abuses of power. We will continue to stand up and fight for the First Amendment rights that protect every American.' Media Matters was sued by tech billionaire Elon Musk and social media platform X in 2023, arguing that the progressive media watchdog colluded with advertisers as part of an effort to pull advertising dollars from X.
