Prosecutors review actions of 4 LAPD officers at protests; LAPD investigates camera use

Prosecutors are reviewing the actions of four LAPD officers during recent protests. Jackie Lacey’s Justice System Integrity Division are reviewing the four officers’ actions after being forwarded their names by LAPD internal affairs detectives, officials said Tuesday. LAPD Deputy Chief Robert Marino, who oversees internal affairs, told the Police Commission that his office had received hundreds of complaints about officers’ protest conduct via calls and emails, and that nearly 100 individual officers stood accused of some violation in total — including 55 instances of alleged excessive force. After Commissioner Dale Bonner asked Tuesday about the existence of body-worn camera footage from the skirmish lines, Marino said that his investigators reviewing complaints of misconduct had identified some instances where officers’ cameras were off. On Tuesday, Rubenstein said the fact that the entire department was mobilized during the unrest — forcing officers to remain on their posts at the end of their shifts — showed the need for officers on the streets and made it “impractical to remove an officer from a skirmish line solely because of a dead battery in a camera.” However, supervisors should not have told officers to leave their cameras in their cars, Rubenstein said — and the department is investigating those directives as violations of policy and to determine why they were given.