In 2021, Daniel Flores was assigned to the LAPD’s Recruiting and Employment Division, the unit responsible for deciding who gets to become a Los Angeles police officer. Shortly after joining, he says the environment turned hostile.
According to a lawsuit Flores filed against the city, a new supervisor began making derogatory remarks about women, Black people, Asians, and Hispanic people, and fostered an environment where others followed suit. Officers were recorded calling women “[expletive] who cannot be trusted” and using slurs about colleagues of color. A female coworker allegedly kept a knife at her desk and threatened to stab colleagues with it.
Flores started recording. Over time he made approximately 90 recordings of conversations in the workplace.
He didn’t leak them. He didn’t post them online or hand them to a journalist. In January 2025 he walked them into LAPD Internal Affairs and filed an official complaint, believing the department would act.
What happened next is the story.
Five officers were placed on home assignment pending investigation. Whether any of them were ever formally disciplined remains unclear. No criminal charges were filed against any officer captured on the recordings.
On July 31, 2026, the Los Angeles County District Attorney charged Flores with 16 felony counts of illegal eavesdropping under California’s all-party consent law, which requires everyone in a conversation to consent before it can be recorded. If convicted on all counts, he faces up to 13 years in prison.
His attorney Alan Jackson put it plainly. “Daniel Flores did not leak this material. He did not sell it, post it or hand it to a reporter. He walked it into Internal Affairs and gave it to his own department, in an official complaint, because he believed the Department would do something about it. The Department’s answer was to investigate him. The District Attorney’s answer is to prosecute him.”
The officers on the recordings face no known criminal charges. The officer who recorded them faces 13 years.
