After uproar, LAPD officer avoids criminal charges for exposing cops’ racist chatter

"We’ve been listening to feedback we’ve been getting," LA County District Attorney Nathan Hochman said at a press conference.LOS ANGELES (CN) — LA County District Attorney Nathan Hochman announced Wednesday that his office is dropping criminal charges against Daniel Flores, the LAPD officer and whistleblower who surreptitiously recorded other officers making racist, sexist and homophobic comments to each other.The 16 felony charges initially brought against Flores, one for every officer he recorded without permission, will be reduced to misdemeanors, sparing Flores from the threat of prison. Flores will also have the option of requesting judicial diversion, a kind of one-year probationary period. If he doesn’t break any laws in the next year, he can move to dismiss the case and it will not go on his record.Flores has said, in a civil suit, that he heard his colleagues call black people “monkeys,” female police officers “bitches,” and that at least one used the word “rapeable.” Hochman’s short-lived prosecution of Flores sparked backlash, with critics saying the DA was siding with racist cops and the powerful police union that supported his candidacy.“While I understand that it is inappropriate and a crime to record colleagues without their consent, those charges certainly send the wrong message that calling out egregious behavior could land you in prison," Mayor Karen Bass told the Los Angeles Times.Flores hired a famously hard-nosed attorney, Alan Jackson, who told reporters that Hochman was sending a “scary message … that if you expose racism and sexism and bigotry and misogyny within the walls of the LAPD, then you’re going to be the one that’s frog-marched into court.”Hochman initially doubled down on his approach. Two weeks ago, he filed a personally signed 27-page motion requesting an extra-long preliminary hearing. In it, he accused Flores of editing the recordings “to leave out many of his comments and reactions to what was being said,” and being motivated not by any altruistic reason but instead to “avoid being transferred to patrol and to reap a financial windfall from suing the city of Los Angeles.”Though he called the recorded comments “deplorable,” he condemned illegal eavesdropping to record a fellow officer’s bigotry. “Such a principle would justify an officer planting drugs or lying under oath to convict a known drug dealer,” Hochman said.But during a press conference on Wednesday, the DA performed an abrupt about-face.He first defended his decision to charge Flores with felonies, saying it was part of his “hard middle approach.” California is an all-party consent state, meaning that it is illegal to record any conversation held in a private setting, including a home or workplace, without everyone’s permission. The charges, he said, were indeed meant to send a message.“We were sending a message to anyone in society who thought this 60-year-old law was not going to be enforced — yeah, it’s going to be enforced,” Hochman said.But, he added, “the message was not being clearly interpreted about us backing whistleblowers,” and “was somewhat being lost in the media and the community … we’ve been listening to feedback we’ve been getting.”He issued a warning: “Don’t take out your smartphone and smart glasses and just press the record button.”The change in charges filed against Flores is expected to be made in court this week or next. The officer had pleaded not guilty to the felony charges; if he requests diversion, as Hochman expects him to, he won’t have to enter a plea.Jackson has not yet issued a statement on the change.The recordings made by Flores — some 122 of them — were turned over to the inspector general in January 2025, and are presumably being used for disciplinary proceedings.Subscribe to our free newslettersOur weekly newsletter Closing Arguments offers the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world, while the monthly Under the Lights dishes the legal dirt from Hollywood, sports, Big Tech and the arts.Additional Reads