A Los Angeles Superior Court judge has temporarily blocked the Inglewood Police Department from destroying records just ahead of a new transparency law that is set to go into effect Jan. 1 in California.
The ruling comes three years after the city was thrown into controversy over its handling of law enforcement documents. In late 2018, the city of Inglewood destroyed hundreds of police records in the weeks before Senate Bill 1421 went into effect. The law misconduct and disciplinary records for departments across the state. Critics argued Inglewood sought to destroy years of investigative records involving police dating to 1991 just ahead of the new law, a claim city leaders rejected.Inglewood Mayor James T. Butts Jr. said at the time.Since 2019, the Inglewood Police Department has not produced a single document under SB 1421, according to the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California in a lawsuit filed Dec. 23. On Dec.