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A journalist for the website L.A. Taco filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the Los Angeles Police Department on Thursday, alleging officers have repeatedly interfered with his constitutional right to document sweeps of homeless encampments throughout the city.
Lexis-Olivier Ray said officers and city sanitation employees have wrongfully threatened him with arrest — and in one instance actually placed him in handcuffs — as he tried to report on encampment sweeps in Skid Row and West L.A. between August and November of last year, according to the complaint.
“I tried to resolve the issue outside of a courtroom. But instead of trying to come to an understanding, LAPD officers responded by arresting me and holding me in the back of a patrol car in handcuffs for nearly an hour, before releasing me without any charges,” Ray said in a statement. “At a time when the First Amendment is being threatened by people in power, and journalists are under attack, it’s more important than ever to reaffirm our rights to film police and government officials in public spaces without threats of arrest.”
In some of the incidents, Ray had crossed yellow crime scene tape. But his attorney, Peter Bibring, argued the tape was put up by sanitation workers rather than police and none of the incidents were active crime scenes.
City workers claimed Ray was interfering with their operations and in a “work zone,” but the suit contends other members of the public were able to walk through the area and he created no disruption.
“LAPD consistently fails to get the basic point that the First Amendment forbids them from closing areas to the press unless its required for a specific and overriding concern,” Bibring said.
Jennifer Forkish, the LAPD’s communications director, said that while she could not comment on pending litigation, the department “fully recognizes the rights of the press to cover public spaces and police activity.”
“Our officers are trained to respect those rights while maintaining public safety,” she said.
The city attorney’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The lawsuit comes at a time when LAPD’s treatment of the press has come under increasing scrutiny in courtrooms.
Last week, a judge barred police and federal law enforcement from using less-lethal weapons on journalists after a spate of incidents in which reporters were hurt during summer protests against the Trump administration’s immigration raids. The city also recently settled two lawsuits filed by journalists who claimed they were injured or wrongfully arrested during protests.
Ray’s lawsuit claims city workers singled him out.
During one September incident, an officer approached Ray and told him “I know exactly who you are” before demanding he leave the area, according to the complaint. In another, he was observing a clean up behind the yellow tape when a sanitation worker purposefully obstructed his view and ordered him to move back while on a public sidewalk, the suit alleges.
Last October, an LAPD officer handcuffed Ray on suspicion of interfering with a clean-up. Video from the scene that the reporter posted to X shows the clean-up work continuing uninterrupted even as an officer tells Ray they are going to “put him in cuffs.” Ray was never formally arrested or charged with a crime.
This is not the first time the department has faced accusations of retaliation against Ray. In 2020, he was arrested for failure to disperse while covering chaotic celebrations that followed the Dodgers World Series victory. A 2021 Times investigation showed that Ray was the only person, among the hundreds in the streets that night, that the LAPD later sought to have charged with a crime.
Ultimately, Ray was not charged in that incident.
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James Queally
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