LOS ANGELES — As the hand-wringing at Los Angeles Police Department headquarters continues over the release of police officers' pictures, the city has been quietly scrubbing the names and ranks of cops from its public records website.
Earlier this month, hawk-eyed LAPD watchers began noticing the disappearance from the city's records portal of LAPD personnel rosters that had previously been released through a public records request.
As with all city departments, the LAPD maintains a roster with the names of its employees, both sworn and civilian, along with other basic details, such as rank, assignments and years of employment. Members of the public regularly request the information, which is subsequently published to the department's records portal. A review of the portal shows that in several cases, even though the records request itself is still visible, the rosters have been removed.
