Los Angeles is fighting to keep sealed a batch of LAPD internal affairs records that two retired and current officers say would prove their supervisors punished them for backing a colleague's race discrimination complaint tied to Mayor Karen Bass's security detail. Retired Lt. Eric Bixler and Det. Richard Jaramillo filed a complaint in Los Angeles Superior Court alleging that a captain and a deputy chief retaliated against them after they served as witnesses in Officer Derrick Boykins' internal complaint. A hearing before Judge Teresa A. Beaudet is set for September 14, 2026, to decide whether the city must turn the records over.
The dispute traces back to a directive that Boykins says came down from then-Chief Michel Moore, instructing Metropolitan Division supervisors to recruit Black officers for Bass's bodyguard detail. According to the lawsuit as reported by MyNewsLA.com, a Black LAPD officer was picked for Bass's detail because he and the mayor are both Black, and Boykins came to believe the recruitment effort amounted to race discrimination. Bass was sworn into office in early 2023, and Moore, who had served as chief since June 2018, officially retired from the department on February 29, 2024, according to the Los Angeles Police Protective League.
How the Complaint Started
Boykins says he complained that Metro was singling out Black officers for recruitment to the mayor's detail, and he feared retaliation against Black officers who declined the assignment, per the same account. Bixler and Jaramillo allegedly overheard Boykins' phone conversation with his brother in February 2023, during which the brother confirmed Metro had received a directive to recruit Black officers for mayoral protection. Boykins later identified Bixler and Jaramillo as witnesses to his complaint, and Jaramillo says he filed a personnel complaint on Boykins' behalf. Boykins told internal affairs that Moore and a captain were responsible for suspected unlawful discrimination, the lawsuit states.
Bixler, who joined LAPD in 1996, and Jaramillo, who joined in 2000, supervised the U.S. Marshals Task Force, a joint unit that the article notes combines U.S. Marshals Service and LAPD resources to locate, arrest, and prosecute dangerous and violent criminals across Los Angeles. The task force includes roughly a dozen LAPD detectives and officers alongside one U.S. marshal, and it had received long-term officer loans from LAPD's Metropolitan Division chase unit since 2020. Boykins and fellow officer Jonathan Pacheco were among those loaned to the chase unit before a new LAPD captain set up a rotation that reduced experienced officers there, ultimately removing both men from the task force and sending them back to Metro.
Retaliation Claims Against Command Staff
Plaintiffs' lawyers say a captain and deputy chief maligned Bixler and Jaramillo's supervisory skills before LAPD command staff and denied them and their officers the resources needed for safety, the same account states. LAPD conducted its own investigation into possible retaliation against the plaintiffs, and their attorneys contend that internal affairs probe examined the very incidents underlying the lawsuit. That is the crux of the current fight: Bixler and Jaramillo, joined by an unnamed current LAPD sworn member and a retired member, are seeking a court order forcing the city to produce the internal affairs records they say back up their claims.
The Los Angeles City Attorney's Office is pushing back hard. City lawyers argue the plaintiffs are not entitled to the internal affairs documents and maintain the files are not relevant to the lawsuit, saying internal affairs actions taken after August 2024 do not prove or disprove facts related to the claims. The city attorney's office also says the records concern an ongoing LAPD internal affairs investigation and that disclosure could undermine the integrity of that case, expose witness identities, or leak sensitive evidence, per MyNewsLA.com's report.
The Legal Fight Over Confidentiality
California law gives the city real ammunition here. Under Penal Code Section 832.7 and Evidence Code Section 1043, peace officer personnel and internal affairs records are confidential and shielded from civil discovery unless a judge clears them through in-camera review or a statutory exception applies, according to Burke, Williams & Sorensen, LLP. If Judge Beaudet does order any records produced, Evidence Code Section 1045 requires her to conduct a private, in-chambers inspection to redact anything not relevant or overly intrusive before attorneys ever see it. That is exactly the process expected at the September 14 hearing, where Beaudet will review any produced documents in a closed session before deciding what plaintiffs' attorneys may receive.
The Bixler-Jaramillo case is not the only whistleblower action stemming from this saga. Boykins and Pacheco separately filed their own lawsuit against the city, and their attorneys sought a July 27, 2026 hearing before Judge Beaudet seeking full audio transcripts and internal affairs complaint face sheets tied to their own claims, according to Patch. In earlier October 2025 filings in the Bixler-Jaramillo matter, the City Attorney's Office urged Beaudet to dismiss the suit outright, arguing the plaintiffs suffered no adverse employment actions and cannot base retaliation claims on the transfer of co-workers, a strategy detailed by MyNewsLA.com. City lawyers have also cited public entity immunity and statute-of-limitations defenses against the whistleblower allegations.
A Department Already Stretched Thin
The fight over loaned officers unfolds as LAPD staffing keeps shrinking. Sworn staffing is projected to fall to roughly 8,400 to 8,620 officers by mid-2026, the department's lowest level in nearly 30 years, according to Police1. That contraction helps explain why control over Metro's chase-unit loans to specialized task forces has become such contested territory inside the department.
The case also lands amid broader scrutiny of LAPD's recruitment and internal affairs practices under Bass. In 2024 and 2025, four officers in the department's Recruiting Employment Division were placed on home assignment after being accused of making racist and sexist remarks about job applicants, a controversy the Los Angeles Times covered in detail. Bass and LAPD leadership publicly condemned those remarks as unacceptable. Hoodline has previously reported on related fallout from that recruitment-division probe, including a felony charge against a recording whistleblower and a captain who avoided dismissal after a related racism case was dropped.
Boykins is no stranger to mayoral security politics. He previously served on former Mayor Eric Garcetti's LAPD detail and gave deposition testimony in a 2020-2022 civil lawsuit involving alleged misconduct by a top Garcetti advisor, according to the Los Angeles Times. For now, the central question before Judge Beaudet remains procedural rather than factual: whether the internal affairs file that plaintiffs say would substantiate their retaliation claims will ever see the light of a courtroom, or stay locked behind California's police confidentiality statutes.
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