An LAPD officer who secretly recorded colleagues allegedly making racist, sexist and homophobic comments is expected to face a felony eavesdropping charge Friday, turning a police accountability complaint into a criminal case against the person who collected the evidence. The recordings were made while he worked in the department’s recruitment operation.
Los Angeles County prosecutors are expected to charge Officer Daniel Flores under California’s privacy law, with the District Attorney’s Office planning to address the case Friday afternoon, according to the Los Angeles Times. Flores’ attorney, Alan Jackson, said his client will fight the charge and plead not guilty.
Flores reportedly turned roughly 90 recordings over to his superiors after capturing conversations between March and October 2024 inside city personnel facilities near LAPD headquarters. Earlier LAPD coverage described the recordings as evidence in a wider scandal involving officers assigned to help decide who could join the department.
The allegations include officers referring to Black people with racist language, making derogatory comments about queer colleagues and women, and discussing an Asian supervisor’s recruitment efforts in offensive terms. Flores also said he overheard a supervisor make a disparaging comment about the death of Dodgers legend Fernando Valenzuela, according to the Times’ report.
The department found Flores guilty of policy violations and recommended a 22-day suspension without pay, though LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell had not finalized the discipline. It also remained unclear whether any of the officers whose comments were recorded had been punished, while Mayor Karen Bass and the police union both condemned the existence of the recordings and the alleged remarks.
Why California’s Recording Law Is Central
California Penal Code Section 632 generally bars intentionally recording a confidential communication without the consent of all parties. The law defines a confidential communication as one made in circumstances where participants could reasonably expect it would not be overheard or recorded, and violations can carry fines and incarceration under the California Legislature’s text of the statute.
Jackson plans to argue that Flores made the recordings within the scope of his duties while investigating suspected workplace misconduct. The legal fight is likely to focus on whether the conversations were private under the statute and whether Flores’ police authority gave him a lawful basis to record them.
Flores also filed a retaliation lawsuit against the city in June, alleging that he was targeted after reporting misconduct inside the department. The criminal case now puts two competing questions in the same spotlight: whether the recordings were illegally made, and whether the people heard making the comments were properly held accountable.
Los Angeles prosecutors have pursued similar privacy cases before. In 2023, the county announced felony eavesdropping charges against a civilian employee of the Sheriff’s Department who was accused of recording colleagues, underscoring that government employees are not automatically exempt from California’s consent requirement.
Any charges against Flores remain allegations, and he is presumed innocent unless proven guilty in court. The case could become an unusually consequential test of how California’s privacy rules apply when a police officer claims secret recordings were part of an internal misconduct investigation.
