LAPD Headshots

LAPD Headshots feat. Undercover Cops

9,177 profiles of Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) officers featuring the LAPD Headshots data dump merged with profile data from OpenOversight to create complete profiles. We've also made a discovery that could be highly relevant to pending lawsuits. We've also added images without matching data to a grid at the bottom of this page with names extracted from the image file names. Unlike other sites hosting pieces of this data, we allow anyone to post comments beneath any profile. This gives victims of police tyranny a unique opportunity to contribute with their stories and other stories they've heard about. If commenting is not good enough, you're welcome to create your own original article. Hopefully, this will allow victims of similar experiences to come together by sharing stories. Often domestic terrorist organizations like the LAPD engage in similar patterns of abuse which comment boards give users the opportunity to expose. If you've ever been less than absolutely 100% completely satisfied with the LAPD, please sign up today and share your story.

LAPD Headshots

LAPD Headshots is the result of a public service performed by a Los Angeles based activist group called the Stop LAPD Spying Coalition (StopLAPDSpying.org). According to media reports, the group's efforts were spearheaded by journalist Ben Camacho (twitter.com/bencamach0) of KnockLA (twitter.com/knockdotLA). Camacho filed a public records request which the LAPD fought for years before finally being forced to comply with it in March of 2023. The LAPD then tried to get the images removed and distribution stopped by filing a frivolous lawsuit which didn't even get them so much as a temporary restraining order (TRO) in April of 2023.

Since the case is pending, we decided to do what we could to preserve the data just in case the LAPD wins. Since we are not California residents and host our website offshore, we can operate no matter what the LAPD does. Our infrastructure allowed us to continue operating when our founder was kidnapped by the federal government years ago despite a federal judge "ordering" him not to operate it while he was being held against his will. We intend to utilize this infrastructure to keep this information up in the event of an injunction because no kangaroo court deserves to be legitimized with cooperation from the public. Fortunately, the court seems to be on the right track so far. The internet is global and the Internet Archive is where we downloaded the .zip from (https://archive.org/details/lapd-headshots-2023). The containment ship sailed so long ago it isn't even in our country anymore. Across the pond and beyond at this point. These files will always be online with or without us. When the LAPD lost their TRO motion, we decided to proceed with this merger anyway because as we stated in the introduction, other sites hosting data about these officers do not appear to allow users to post comments. That feature alone makes adding this content to Cop Blaster a unique opportunity for the public.

On behalf of everyone who might find themselves in Los Angeles in the future (but hopefully not on a bus home from Victorville USP like our founder) we would like to thank the Stop LAPD Spying Coalition, Ben Camacho, KnockLA, and everyone else who made this public domain. It is nice to know that if we are ever in that area and screwed with by the LAPD that we'll probably be able to find the pig's picture online with a little place to say how we fell about it below.

The Stop LAPD Spying Coalition has also created a website where you can browse the LAPD Headshots data (WatchtheWatchers.net). We assume the profile data they are using came from the Excel file turned over by the LAPD. The most likely explanation for the similarities would probably be that OpenOversight obtained their data via a public records request that did not include pictures. That would explain why we never see pictures of LAPD officers there. It would also explain overlapping fields like gender, race, and rank. Why they don't have a little comment widget we don't know. We would love to see them try something like a Disqus widget which can be set up easily on the Disqus site and added with a snippet of code (Disqus.com).

*NEW: Watch the Watchers has launched a new feature which allows users to browse by division. It is the kind of thing we can’t do with our system because our system is designed for the whole country, so while we’re perfectly capable of incorporating large batches of data for a specific city and category, we don’t have the ability to drill down by neighborhood or in this case division. They also have each division organized by rank. It could be a great resource for anyone in LA whose been bothered by an officer is a specific area. If you can figure out which division is responsible for that area, then you can browse headshots from that division and hopefully identify the officer.

NEXT: We can still contribute to this project in ways in addition to allowing users to post comments because we still have an important feature which Watch the Watchers lacks. We have RSS feeds including a custom-made random feed which can be used to auto-share links to individual profiles on social media. We’ve already set up pages on Medium, Reddit, Mastodon, Tumblr, Pinterest, and Facebook which should help search engines and social media users discover individual photos better. Unfortunately, Medium and Reddit are rate limited to just 5 auto-shares per day, so at that rate it will take about 5 years to auto-share everything. Mastodon, Tumblr, Pinterest, and Facebook have much higher limits, but their algorithms seem to be suppressing a lot of the auto-shared content.

Shadow Bans

Pinterest and Facebook appear to have shadow banned our pages already. When searching Pinterest for the name of an officer whose photo was shared nothing relevant showed up. When browsing #LAPD on Facebook we noticed at first that our auto-shares were showing up but now we don’t see them. We’ve also noticed that search engines seem to have stopped indexing social media pages like those for the most part. In the past we’ve used auto-blogs to help with content discovery, but due to recent changes by Google it seems all auto-blogs are automatically penalized, so doing that again would probably be a waste of time.

OpenOversight

OpenOversight is a collaborative effort from Lucy Parsons Labs to improve police accountability by creating online databases of law enforcement officers across the United States. OpenOversight makes spreadsheets available for public use. Unfortunately, only a small percentage of profiles on OpenOversight.com contain photos and nobody can post comments.

The Merger

When we learned about one of multiple frivolous lawsuits filed by the LAPD in a pathetic effort to stop the spread of their pictures, we reached out to one of their victims (KillerCop.com) and they were nice enough to provide us with a link where we could download all the images as a .zip file. When we unzipped the file, we were pleasantly surprised to see all their badge numbers in the file names. Having been users of OpenOversight for many years we realized that if the badge numbers were also included in the OpenOversight spreadsheets that we could easily import both into the same spreadsheet as separate tables, extract the badge numbers from the file names, and merge the tables based on the badge numbers.

The Data

We have uploaded the results of the merger and are making those files available for you. They include a new .zip file optimized for use on websites hosted on Windows Servers. When we first inserted the data into our database, we noticed that over 2,000 images were broken because someone included the # symbol in the file names. Use of the # symbol in a file name breaks the file when trying to view it online, so we stripped those out. The result is a .zip file anyone can use whether they're using Linux or Windows servers.

Download Now: LAPDHeadshots.zip.

We have also uploaded a copy of our spreadsheet featuring the merged data. This spreadsheet features the matches at the top followed by lists of orphan images and profile data without images. The orphan images are images with badge numbers not found in the OpenOversight data. The orphan profiles are open oversight profiles not associated with any images.

Download Now: LAPDHeadshots.xlxs.

End Result

To view the end result, you can check out the LAPDHeadshots tag archive which has its own search tool specific to that tag or category listings for police in Los Angeles, California.

Discovery

After combining the data, we researched the origin story more and learned that over 321 officers are claiming to have had their information wrongfully disclosed. That came as a surprise to us because if only 94 images don’t have matching records in the OpenOversight data, it could mean that the city has given over 200 of those names to other people.

Other possibilities include supplementation of the OpenOversight data with LAPD Headshots data, but if that were the case, we would expect OpenOversight's data to include every name from LAPD Headshots plus others they’d already acquired. OpenOversight's dataset still has the footprint of a similar yet technically different dataset most likely acquired due to a public records request which did not include pictures.

This leaves lying as the final possible explanation we've thought of so far which would be consistent with standard operating procedures. Police officers almost always exaggerate to get what they want (ex: describing a minor shove as a violent assault). The LAPD has already admitted to using an broad definition of "undercover" which goes beyond active undercover work to include those engaged in plain clothes operations from time to time like posing as a prostitute, posing as a minor, or doing anything under a pseudonym. This suggests that many of the 321 "undercover" officers were most likely not undercover at the time their photos were released. We also are not aware of the LAPD ever suing anyone else just for posting their names online, so we think they're probably just looking for an excuse to get the pictures back before launching legal objections to future requests which would likely force the requester to spend years suing.

Orphan Images

There are 94 images included in the LAPD Headshots .zip file which could not be matched with any of the OpenOversight profile data.

New, Dead, Laid Off or Undercover?

We know of four possible explanations for the orphan images so far. 1) Some are new officers whose names were not on the roster when OpenOversight received their dataset; 2) They died and the LAPD kept their images in the system or they died after both datasets were turned over and OpenOversight removed their names; 3) Their names were redacted from the dataset before it was given to OpenOversight; 4) OpenOversight received their dataset after Camacho and they'd been laid off by then. We have been informed that one of the officers below, Officer Tipping was killed in a training exercise. The only reason we know of why the LAPD might redact their information is that they were working undercover at the time. The undercover theory is consistent with arguments the city has made in court, but the layoff theory is gathering steam due to media reports indicating a growing staffing shortage. There are 12 more images in the zip file than there are names in the spreadsheet, so OpenOversight probably received their data shortly after Camacho received his. In Feburary, it was reported that the force was down to 9,236 sworn personnel despite efforts to hire new people and bring back others.

The LAPD's entire argument against the people has been that the California Public Records Act (CPRA) exempts information about officers actively working undercover from disclosure. Someone working for the city screwed up by failing to redact the data before releasing it. Suing to get it back is like setting a bag of empty cans on the curb and demanding whoever picked it up give it back to you because you didn't realize there were some bottles in it. Not realizing what you voluntarily gave away does not give you grounds to demand its return because after giving something away it ceases to be yours. Nobody must give something you've voluntarily given back to you. The officers claiming to have been undercover at the time of the disclosure are already suing the city, but they should have stopped there instead of suing unsuspecting citizens guilty of merely requesting public records and uploading what the city gave them.

Our recommendation to the LAPD is that they simply assign every officer whose information has been released to non-undercover duties. Then if they want to do undercover operations in the future, they should hire new officers whose photos have not been released. It could take some time and money but that is the cost the city incurs when they screw up. In the meantime, if maintaining this list keeps just one person from getting kidnapped by the government, we have accomplished our mission.

If you recognize someone in your life on here, we recommend avoiding that person. That is usually what people do when they suspect someone of working with the police. Avoiding a person denies that person information. It wouldn't make any sense for someone to do anything rash because they're more likely to hand them case. Often undercover cops are still undercover because they don't have enough evidence to charge you. If you commit a crime against an undercover officer, you hand them a case on a silver platter. We respectfully ask that you show your thanks by not doing anything to any of these people.