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.”
This is one of those things that always puts me on the fence about two party states. Like on the one hand I understand why you would want everybody to know they’re being recorded especially on like phone calls, on the other hand these cops definitely wouldn’t have said anything if they knew they were being recorded and then this shit happens.
I’d think that, since this conversation happened on public property, and the conversation was among public servants, the conversation is subject to the same standards as any other public conversation.
Maybe the legal system is too stupid for that, though.