In 2021, William Gude—the fearless LAPD critic who goes by “Film The Police LA” on social media—filed a public records request for information about officers assigned to the Community Safety Partnership Bureau (CSPB).
Five years later, he’s still waiting for the LAPD to hand over all of the responsive documents that the department has identified.
Gude is interested in the records because when the Community Safety Partnership Bureau was created, the LAPD “billed it as being made up of 100 handpicked officers with superb records,” he tells me. The Community Safety Partnership program is an initiative that embeds LAPD officers in housing projects, the South Park neighborhood and several other locations.
“I filed a request to get personnel records of serious misconduct by these handpicked officers in the CSPB,” he says. “Here we are more than five years later and they still haven't completed the request.”
According to Gude, the LAPD has released some of the records over the years, but not all of them.
“They've been sending them in bits,” he says. “But it shouldn't take this long.”