"After the LAPD response to a 2020 protest outside the mayor's mansion led to an excessive force lawsuit, attorneys representing the Police Department insisted they had turned over all relevant evidence. But then lawyers for the plaintiffs - activists from Black Lives Matter-L.A. - found footage recorded on the officers' body-worn cameras showed them tapping out messages on their phones, apparently sending texts to other LAPD officials that were never handed over."
"Judge Theresa M. Traber wrote in a preliminary ruling in October that LAPD Capt. Warner Castillo probably deleted messages by running a "factory-reset" on his phone in November 2023 "around the same time that Plaintiffs knew he had been texting during the protest and intended to seek those texts." The court also found reason to believe that Castillo later wiped all backups of the messages from his iCloud account."
A Los Angeles Superior Court judge found that LAPD officials probably destroyed text messages that plaintiffs sought as evidence in an excessive-force lawsuit stemming from a 2020 protest outside the mayor's residence. Activists from Black Lives Matter-L.A. discovered body-worn camera footage showing officers tapping messages during the protest that were not produced. The court found that Capt. Warner Castillo likely performed a "factory-reset" on his phone in November 2023 and later wiped iCloud backups, shortly after plaintiffs indicated they would seek those texts. The judge called the allegations extremely grave and found Castillo's family-text explanation unconvincing. Video showed officers swinging batons and knocking demonstrators to the ground.
Read at Los Angeles Times
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