The city of Inglewood and the Inglewood City Council members continue to battle allegations they intentionally destroyed some police misconduct records to prevent disclosure.
The lawsuit filed by the Amercian Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in December 2021, came after they filed a Public Records Act requests with the Inglewood Police Department which resulted in the records not being turned over. The Inglewood City Council voted to destroy the records prior to a new state law being enacted.
The ACLU’s Los Angeles Superior Court petition seeks the information under the California Public Records Act and Senate Bill 1421, which was enacted in 2018 by the Legislature and enables the public to access peace officer records concerning uses of force and police misconduct that had been previously unavailable.
According to Courthouse News, A Los Angeles Superior Court judge said on Wednesday he was likely to order the city of Inglewood to begin post certain records of police misconduct on a website, as a punishment for repeatedly violating the California Public Records Act.
The City’s attorney wants the judge to reconsider the possibly levying of penalties due to the alleged intentional act.
This is unprecedented relief they’re asking for,” said King, who argued that the small city, with a population of just over 100,000, would have to spend time and money to heavily redact hundreds of police reports every year, post them online and maintain the website “ad infinitum.”
He added: “That is a waste of taxpayer money.”
Money ain’t a thang when the City is throwing countless music festivals, Vote-chella voter registration events, MacBook giveaways, and any other event that puts the members of the Inglewood City Council before the public to receive either adulation or criticism.
Money ain’t a thang when the City has spent $72 million towards the Inglewood Transit Connector which hasn’t broken ground yet.
Money surely ain’t a thang for the City when they have spent upwards of $3 million to defend Inglewood Mayor James T. Butts Jr. in a lawsuit filed by his former aide Melanie McDade, with whom he was having an affair with while she worked as his executive assistant.
And money ain’t a thang when taxpayers had to pay a Los Angeles Police Department motor officer $15 million after Mayor Butts made an illegal turn and slammed into him while driving a city-owned vehicle.
Inglewood City Clerk Aisha Thompson also has a hand in avoiding public disclosure of certain documents as the public has to jump through hoops and hurdles to request campaign finance disclosures and forms detailing the mayor and councilmembers economic interests (Form 700’s).
Most cities, like Compton and Los Angeles, provide the public with unfettered access to these documents, while in Inglewood they are held under lock in key in the Thompson’s office.
But according to the ACLU, Inglewood’s stonewalling was especially egregious, and the nonprofit sued the city in 2021, after it learned that the city was planning to destroy even more records. A judge issued a restraining order, blocking the city from the planned destruction.
In 2023, a different judge ordered Inglewood to turn over the documents requested by the ACLU and others.
In August, the ACLU filed a motion for summary judgment, writing, “Defendants routinely and systematically violate the law when responding to requests for peace officer records — delaying responses and records production beyond the specific time mandates required by statute and improperly withholding records.”
It asked the judge to issue an injunction ordering the city to post any of the documents made obtainable by law to its “internet website and, in response to a request for a public record posted on the internet website, directing a member of the public to the location.”
On Wednesday, King insisted that the violations weren’t all that bad, and hardly systemic.
“There were 30 [Public Records Act requests] that were allegedly mishandled — 30, over six years,” King said. “That’s five every year. There is a triable fact as to whether this was a systematic violation, or human error.”
“The city did a poor job, admittedly, but the remedy isn’t to invest in the cost of redacting hundreds of police reports and putting them on the internet forever,” he said.
Inglewood Mayor James T. Butts Jr., Councilman Alex Padilla, and Councilwoman Gloria Gray are all up for re-election on June 2, 2026.
Courthouse News contributed to this report.
