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Charges reduced for police officer who secretly taped colleagues’ racist remarks (www.independent.co.uk)
submitted 1 month ago by to c/news@lemmy.world
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The Los Angeles district attorney has dropped felony charges against a police officer who secretly recorded his colleagues making racist remarks.

Los Angeles Police Department Officer Daniel Flores was charged in July with 16 felony counts after submitting audio to internal affairs in early 2025. The tapes, recorded within the LAPD's recruitment division, captured officers making explicit remarks and were first disclosed by the Los Angeles Times.

District Attorney Nathan Hochman had initially charged Flores under California's decades-old eavesdropping statute, which mandates the consent of all parties present to legally record conversations. The original charges carried a maximum sentence of 13 years in prison.

The charges sparked swift backlash, particularly from Flores' attorney, Alan Jackson. Speaking to the LA Times in July, Jackson warned that the case communicated that “if you document bigotry inside the LAPD, you will be the one who ends up in a courtroom. It tells them the safe move is to hear slurs and say nothing.”

Archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20260821132859/https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/lapd-officer-daniel-flores-secret-recordings-charges-b3035944.html

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[–] 92 points 1 month ago (24 children)

Hochman stated that his office was “listening to the impact the case was having on potential whistleblowers” when deciding to scale back the charges, acknowledging that the initial prosecution “sent the wrong message” to the public. While describing the comments by the other officers as “hate speech,” the district attorney noted there was insufficient evidence of a hate crime to bring criminal charges against them.

Fuck Hochman. There should never have been charges, and the racist pigs should have been fired. Charging a good faith whistleblower with any crime is vile. Hochman is lawless, fascist scum.

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  • [–] 8 points 1 month ago (5 children)

    Well I feel confident saying that any defense attorney who goes up against them would have a real easy job if I were on the jury. Maybe they can't be arrested, but holy shit can they become a liability to the force

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  • [–] 11 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    That's the thing..... You don't have to do an actual crime to be reprimanded or dismissed by your employer. I imagine that committing hate speech is a fireable offense in pretty much any other job in America. It's crazy that the bar to fire a cop is set at prove they did a hate crime.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    Remember to play it close to the vest during jury selection.

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  • [–] 6 points 1 month ago

    Yep. But also, for an opportunity to get on my soapbox, if you don't genuinely need to not serve in jury duty, don't try to get out of it. When we have a culture where everyone tries to get out of jury duty we find ourselves in a society where laws are enforced by people too dumb to get kicked out of a jury.

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  • [+] -14 points 1 month ago (15 children)

    California is a two party consent state. He broke the law by recording them, and should be charged just as a civilian would. Or harsher because he's a cop.

    But yes, the other cops should be fired.

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  • [–] 14 points 1 month ago (12 children)

    The Constitution gives us the right to record our government officials in the performance of their duties.

    Furthermore, whistleblower protections exist precisely for cases like this where something much more important is being uncovered.

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  • [+] -8 points 1 month ago (11 children)

    recording your coworkers joking that someone died from eating too many tacos isn't really a case of whistleblowing because saying racist stuff isn't illegal. so this isn't precisely why whistleblowing laws exist at all.

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  • [–] 12 points 1 month ago (8 children)

    You don't have to witness someone breaking an actual law to enact whistleblower protections, it can cover you when you reasonably believe there is "evidence of a violation of any law, rule, or regulation; gross mismanagement; a gross waste of funds; an abuse of authority; or a substantial and specific danger to public health or safety."

    So yes, this is precisely why whistleblower protections exist.

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  • [–] -4 points 1 month ago (7 children)

    whistleblower protections don't allow you to break the law in order to gather evidence in any way that you may see fit. so it's still illegal to record your co-workers without their knowledge even if they are being racist.

    so no, this isn't what whistleblower protections cover at all, which is why this person is still being charged. I hope that clears it up for you.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 month ago (5 children)

    don't allow you to break the law in order to gather evidence in any way that you may see fit. so it's still illegal to record your co-workers without their knowledge even if they are being racist.

    Police officers do not have a reasonable expectation of privacy while on the job.

    which is why this person is still being charged.

    Being charged does not mean you have committed a crime.

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  • [–] 0 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    Unfortunately US two party laws were made as a knee-jerk reaction to Nixon's wiretapping; the US doesn't deal in "expectations of privacy" like more sensible countries do.

    Making an audio recording should be no different to getting out a pen and paper and making a written recording. Keeping a personal record should not be a crime. It's what you do with the recording that matters.

    But that's how things should be, the law is often not right in this area. As others have said, the whistleblower broke the law here.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago (1 child)

    But that's how things should be, the law is often not right in this area. As others have said, the whistleblower broke the law here.

    That's going to be decided by the judicial system. It's perfectly legal to record officers while they are on duty. The debate will be whether being on the clock and in a police station is the same as operating in their official capacity. Which I think is a pretty easy argument to make in court.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago

    That’s going to be decided by the judicial system.

    Absolutely. Like I've hinted at, the US is kind of unique in this black and white one party/two party consent structure. Other countries deal in "expectations of privacy", which is far more nuanced, and dare I say it, more sensible.

    It’s perfectly legal to record officers while they are on duty.

    It's legal for a member of the public to record an officer on duty. There is a question of whether they are considered on duty (sounds like maybe? It was senior officers formally training other officers, not some private locker room conversation) and also whether an officer can record another. It's perhaps a different legal dynamic between a member of the public and an officer, vs two officers.

    How it plays out depends on the law. Like you say, he has a strong argument against a criminal conviction - and he shouldn't really be convicted of any crime either. But it does sound like he broke the letter of the law in that jurisdiction.

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  • [–] -2 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    Police officers do not have a reasonable expectation of privacy while on the job.

    ok, so now you have abandoned your argument that this person should be afforded whistleblower protections for breaking the law and now you are arguing that they didn't break the law?

    you are wrong either way. becoming a police officer doesn't automatically sacrifice ones 'reasonable expectation of privacy'.

    like so many of the other redditors you're confusing how you feel the world should work with how it actually does. you can argue with me forever but you are objectively wrong about this.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 month ago

    ok, so now you have abandoned your argument that this person should be afforded whistleblower protections for breaking the law and now you are arguing that they didn't break the law?

    Wut? When did I claim that? My original claim was that a person didn't have to witness someone breaking a law to claim whistleblower protections. It can be utilized for something as small as witnessing misconduct.

    you are wrong either way. becoming a police officer doesn't automatically sacrifice ones 'reasonable expectation of privacy'.

    They do while they are on duty as a police officer...... They still have a expectation of privacy as when acting as a private citizen.

    like so many of the other redditors you're confusing how you feel the world should work with how it actually does.

    Think youight be projecting here......

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  • [–] 7 points 1 month ago* (1 child)

    I think people in positions of power should not be racist fuckwits making light of rape, but fuck me, right?

    relying on racist tropes about Black people, and describing a young LAPD recruit as “rapeable” because they were “someone who could be taken advantage of.”

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