![]() ![]() Karen Bass, mayor of Los Angeles, has sought to recruit hundreds of new police officers. Moore acknowledged that even officers who haven’t worked an undercover assignment in many years could now be at risk and that disguises like facial hair, glasses or hats are not sufficient to fool software that focuses on bone structure, eyes and other facial features. While facial recognition software is expensive and unlikely to be used by ordinary street gangs and other low-level criminal enterprises, police experts say it is almost certainly in use by drug cartels and other well-resourced operations. Several officers, he told one interviewer, have had to pull out of undercover operations and work their investigations at a safer distance. ![]() Some of the complaints coming from the rank and file reflect a general hostility to publicizing personal information – a contentious issue pitting uniformed officers against campaigners for greater transparency and accountability, and not just in Los Angeles.īut the danger to past and present undercover operatives is not in dispute, and Moore has conceded that the information release has already caused problems for some of the department’s most important investigations. She has called the release an “ an egregious mistake” and expressed concern that officer numbers may now drop further. The union’s dismay is largely shared by Karen Bass, the mayor of Los Angeles, whose plans to mount an aggressive recruitment campaign and hire hundreds of new police officers to make up for losses since the start of the Covid-19 epidemic are now in significant jeopardy. According to the complaint, the city omitted the names of officers carrying out internal investigations into potential wrongdoing within the police department itself, but somehow failed to omit the names and images of officers working “sensitive investigative assignments” in the field. The union has lodged a formal complaint to demand accountability from Moore and from his top legal adviser. “With the risk of facial recognition now, you’d be out of your mind. “They’ve put officers in harm’s way and potentially stymied anyone from going into undercover work,” a police union spokesperson, Tom Saggau, said. They’ve put officers in harm’s way and potentially stymied anyone from going into undercover work LAPD police union spokesperson Tom Saggau Law enforcement experts also warn that drug cartels and other powerful criminal gangs are likely to run the photographs through sophisticated facial recognition software to help them root out police moles within their organizations – and, if they get the chance, to take revenge. ![]() Soon after the information appeared on an internet database in March, one social media troll issued a call for “clean head shots on these LAPD officers, A to Z”. That has infuriated the force as a whole and shone an uncomfortable spotlight on the chief, Michel Moore, who was just appointed to a second term despite a slew of controversies surrounding his first five-year tenure and is managing a department that was already understaffed and low on morale. One source with detailed knowledge of the case, who asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of the information, said about 150 present and former undercover officers had been exposed. Many of them have reported threats to themselves and their families and have told the police union they are so fearful for their safety they are considering quitting the force. None of the officers – undercover or otherwise – were given advance warning or offered an opportunity to raise objections to their information becoming public. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |