Knock LA

In an effort to curtail unlawful LAPD overreach and entrapment, several activists across the city created a database of LAPD officers, an action that qualifies as free speech. Rather than heed the call-in by the public to Stop LAPD Spying, LA City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto has chosen to further the city’s attacks on the freedom of the press by issuing a lawsuit for these actions against Knock LA photo editor Ben Camacho.

Through this lawsuit, the city of Los Angeles has chosen to suppress the right of the public to hold police officers accountable instead of examining the culture of misconduct that has been proven to exist within the LAPD. Feldstein Soto and her office have expressly demonstrated the city’s use of censorship to suppress  information that keeps the public safe and free.

We stand with Ben, the members of Stop LAPD Spying, and the numerous journalist groups across Los Angeles that have condemned the city’s attempts to divert blame from their own shortcomings.

Throughout what has become a longstanding battle, Feldstein Soto and her legal team have repeatedly violated the constitutional and First Amendment rights of journalists and the public to report on public servants. As we continue to lose the local news landscape of Los Angeles to corporate greed and mismanagement, this attack on the free and independent press by the city is especially poignant. Consider donating to Knock LA so we may continue the work of providing the public with crucial information that Hydee Feldstein Soto and the city of Los Angeles are trying to suppress.