A Los Angeles Police Department captain said new rules for the safety and protection of working journalists covering protests, marches or demonstrations have been circulated to \u201ceach and every LAPD employee,\u201d according to court papers obtained Friday.<\/p>\n
In response to a federal judge\u2019s order, Captain Yasir Gillani of the LAPD\u2019s Risk Management and Legal Affairs Division described in writing Thursday all measures the LAPD has taken to circulate the details of the court\u2019s temporary restraining order (TRO) and to ensure compliance with its terms.<\/p>\n
The TRO was issued in Los Angeles federal court on July 10 by U.S. District Judge Hern\u00c3\u00a1n D. Vera providing protections for journalists covering protests in Los Angeles after reporters alleged law enforcement mistreated them during street demonstrations in July. Two related lawsuits brought by the Los Angeles Press Club are pending before Vera.<\/p>\n
The TRO prohibits LAPD officers from targeting journalists who are not posing a threat of imminent harm to an officer or another person with less-lethal munitions and other crowd control weapons \u2014 including kinetic impact projectiles, chemical irritants and flash bangs.<\/p>\n
At a hearing regarding the lawsuits on Aug. 25, the judge remarked that LAPD appeared to do only the \u201cminimum\u201d by posting an explanation of the TRO on the department\u2019s Local Area Network addressed to all department personnel, Gillani wrote in his declaration to the court.<\/p>\n
\u201cGiven the Court\u2019s remarks during the hearing, I decided that LAPD should further disseminate and explain the terms of the Court\u2019s TRO,\u201d the captain wrote.<\/p>\n
He said that the following day, in consultation with the Los Angeles City Attorney\u2019s Office, he composed an email message explaining what is prohibited under the court order.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe TRO also provides that if police establish a police line or rolling closure during a demonstration, march, protest, or rally, LAPD officers shall not prohibit a duly authorized representative of a media organization engaged in news gathering from entering or remaining in the closed areas,\u201d Gallini wrote in the email.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen an officer is approached by a person who claims to be a member of the media during a crowd control situation, and the officer cannot determine if the person is `duly authorized\u2019 by a media organization to be there, the officer should call a supervisor to make an objectively reasonable determination whether the person is permitted to be in a closed area or behind the police line.\u201d<\/p>\n
The captain further explains that during any assembly, protest or demonstration, chemical agents, various \u201cless-lethal\u201d launchers and tools \u201cshall not be used to disperse a crowd. Instead, they can only be used to defend against what an officer reasonably believes to be an immediate threat to the safety of the officer or others, or to bring a dangerous and unlawful situation safely and effectively under control.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gallini told the court that the LAPD\u2019s Department Operations Center emailed the TRO and his message to each and every LAPD employee.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Los Angeles Police Department captain said new rules for the safety and protection of working journalists covering…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":23934,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[1582,276,104438,3040,13941,9815,2961,4530,224,5337,398,8148,4317],"class_list":{"0":"post-186270","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-california","10":"tag-circulates","11":"tag-department","12":"tag-employee","13":"tag-every","14":"tag-la","15":"tag-lapd","16":"tag-los-angeles","17":"tag-losangeles","18":"tag-media","19":"tag-protection","20":"tag-rules"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115115592449423025","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186270","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=186270"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186270\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23934"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=186270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=186270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=186270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}