The city of Los Angeles has agreed to pay the legal bills for a local journalist and a group of activists who it took to court last year for publishing photographs of LAPD officers, part of a tentative settlement that will end a lawsuit some saw as an assault on media freedom.
Under the agreement, which still needs to be approved by the City Council, Knock LA journalist Ben Camacho and the group Stop LAPD Spying Coalition will receive $300,000 in lawyer fees. They were sued for publishing thousands of officers’ pictures that the city had itself provided in response to a public records request.
The agreement allows both sides to put the matter behind them without conceding any wrongdoing, although several other legal actions related to the officer photos remain pending, with the city still attempting to hold Camacho and Stop LAPD Spying responsible.
The city had asked the court to order Camacho and Stop LAPD Spying to return the images of officers in sensitive roles, to take them off the internet, and to forgo publishing them in the future. Those demands will now be dropped.