It was April 2021, and the Los Angeles Police Department was facing sharp criticism for its handling of mass protests against police brutality. A Black Lives Matter Los Angeles complaint accuses police of firing less-lethal weapons at demonstrators who posed no threat, among other abuses.
Smith said the Los Angeles assistant city attorney wanted him to sign a prewritten sworn statement describing how during protests in Tujunga in 2020, LAPD officers had no choice but to use force against unstable crowds who threw bottles and smoke grenades.
He refused to put his name on it.
Instead, eight months later, Smith filed his own lawsuit against the city, claiming he faced retaliation for trying to report a range of misconduct within the Los Angeles Police Department.
Captain Johnny Smith of the Los Angeles Police Department.
(Los Angeles Police Department)
Smith and his attorney declined to be interviewed by The Times, but evidence in his lawsuit reveals behind-the-scenes coordination and friction between LAPD officials and the city attorney’s office defending police use of force at protests.
Smith’s lawsuit alleges that he felt pressured to make misleading statements to cover up the officers’ reckless conduct.
The captain’s claim, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court in December 2021, takes on new significance as the city faces new lawsuits over the LAPD’s crowd control tactics during recent protests against the Trump administration.
Protests in 2020 resulted in a court order restricting LAPD officers from using certain less-lethal weapons, including launchers that fire hard foam pellets typically used against uncooperative suspects.
The city is still fighting to lift those restrictions and others imposed as a result of a separate lawsuit filed in June by a press rights group.
Last month, city attorneys. Hydee Feldstein Soto was reprimanded by the City Council after she sought a temporary stay of an order issued by U.S. District Judge Hernán D. Vera.
Feldstein Soto believes the rules — which prohibit police from targeting journalists and nonviolent protesters — are too broad and unrealistic. Vera rejected Feldstein-Soto’s request, but the case is pending before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, with a hearing tentatively scheduled for mid-November.
A counterprotester was arrested after approaching Trump supporters who held a rally in Tujunga in 2020.
(Kyle Grillo/AFP/Getty Images)
Smith said in the lawsuit that he would not put his name on the Tujunga statement as he reviewed evidence showing officers ignored LAPD regulations regarding bean bag shotguns and launchers that fire 37 mm and 40 mm projectiles – about the size of a mini soda can – at speeds in excess of 200 mph.
Smith’s lawsuit claims the launchers were intended to be “targeted,” or fired at individuals who posed a threat, not to disperse crowds.
Smith said he had been sounding the alarm in the months following the Tujunga protests, which came at the end of President Trump’s first term amid outrage over police killings of black and Latino people across the country.
But Smith’s lawsuit alleges that the incidents he flagged didn’t gain traction until the city was sued.
The city denies the allegations in Smith’s lawsuit and says in court documents that every case of the LAPD’s use of force is thoroughly investigated.
Smith’s lawsuit cites emails to senior LAPD officials that he says demonstrate the department’s efforts to address complaints of excessive use of force at protests.
An internal working group deemed most citizen complaints “baseless.” However, nearly two dozen cases were later reopened after Smith and a small group of officials discovered that the department’s review missed a litany of policy violations, Smith’s lawsuit alleges.
Smith also noted what he believed was “problematic bias” in the way the Tujunga protests were reported to superiors.
His complaint describes a presentation to then-Chief Michelle Moore that downplayed the severity of damage caused by less-lethal projectiles. According to Smith, the report omitted photos of “extensive injuries” to a woman who said in her lawsuit that she was hit in the chest at close range by a beanbag round and had to undergo plastic surgery.
The Los Angeles Police Department stopped using beanbag shotguns at protests after state law banned the practice, but the department still allows officers to use the weapons in other situations, such as when subduing uncooperative suspects.
Los Angeles police try to break up a confrontation between Trump supporters and counter-protesters at a pro-Trump rally in Tujunga in 2020.
(Kyle Grillo/AFP/Getty Images)
Smith’s friend, former Police Chief Alan Skobin, told The Times that Smith was in the room in April 2021 when he received a call from the city attorney’s office asking about a statement he refused to sign.
The exchange seemed tense, Scobin recalled, as Smith reiterated that the details contained in the document were “lies.”
Scobin said he wanted to know if the assistant city attorney “went back and examined the video and all the other evidence.”
“That’s what I hope happens,” Scobin said.
Karen Richardson, a spokesperson for the Los Angeles City Attorney, provided the Times with a California Bar Association report saying there was insufficient evidence to discipline the lawyers involved; the case was closed in June 2024.
Richardson declined further comment, citing Smith’s pending litigation.
Smith said other senior LAPD officials echoed the misleading narrative that Tujunga officers acted after being overwhelmed by a hostile crowd.
Smith claimed he was retaliated against for reporting a fellow captain who said police officers’ use of force against a placard-holding protester was justified “in order to use the pole as a weapon against the officers.”
Smith said body camera footage shows a different version of events, with officers unreasonably attacking the man and others around him.
The colleague who reported Smith, Hurtado, a German, has been promoted to deputy chief.
The city denied the allegations in court documents. When reached for comment Friday, Hurtado said he was limited in what he could say because of the ongoing litigation.
“As far as I know, all investigations are baseless,” he said of Smith’s allegations.
“The lawsuit, I don’t know where it is, I don’t know anything about it. No one talks to me. No one deposes me.”
Critics say the Los Angeles Police Department continues to violate rules against targeting journalists during demonstrations.
On October 18, a peaceful “No King Day” protest was held in the city center during the day. After nightfall, about 100 to 200 people lingered outside the Metropolitan Detention Center in the city center. Police declared the assembly unlawful and began firing 40mm artillery shells.
Lexis-Olivier Ray, a reporter for the news site LA Taco who frequently covers demonstrations, was among those struck by bullets.
On October 18, hundreds of people attended the Peace Without a King Day of Action in downtown Los Angeles.
(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)
In a video widely shared online, an LAPD officer can be heard defending the incident, saying they shot at “fake” reporters.
A spokesman for the Los Angeles Police Department said Ray’s incident is under internal investigation and could not provide further comment.
Wray said this was not the first time he had been hit by less-lethal bullets at protests, despite years of legislation and court orders.
“It’s frustrating that things like this keep happening,” he said.
Mayor Karen Bass introduces Jim McDonnell as Chief of the Los Angeles Police Department during a press conference at City Hall on October 4, 2024.
(Ringo Zhao/The Times)
Los Angeles Police Chief Jim McDonald defended the department at Tuesday’s weekly Police Commission meeting, saying “No King” protesters who remained downtown after dark fired lasers at officers and threw rocks, bottles and fireworks.
When asked about the incident involving Ray, the chief said he did not want to comment publicly but would do so “offline,” prompting jeers from some viewers who demanded an explanation.
McDonald told the committee he supports the city’s efforts to lift the court injunction. He said easing restrictions would “allow our officers to use less lethal force options so that we don’t have to escalate beyond that.”
Times staff writer Noah Goldberg contributed to this report.
