Plaintiffs: Secret location used by white officers for surveillance

From a June 18 response filed by plaintiffs in Alexander vs. Greensboro on June 18:

LA Secret Police: Inside the LAPD Elite Spy Network, a 1992 expose co-authored by a former LAPD detective assigned to the Organized Crime Intelligence Division ('OCID') revealed that OCID operated out of the third floor office along the edge of downtown Los Angeles. The OCID offices were equipped with the most up-to-date surveillance equipment. From these rooms, the unit's detectives quietly and painstaking gathered intelligence on people who, for the most part, were suspected of no wrongdoing.

OCID's captain reported directly to the LAPD chief of police. According to the authors of the book, "OCID was conducting massive operations against noncriminals for not other reason than to try to embarass them or pressure them sometime in the future." "Intelligence was gathered on both friends and foes. Why friends? Because friends might not stay friends. But if they did, solid intelligence could be employed to help them out when danger lurked."

The evidence will show that LA Secret Police was a powerful influence on defendants and, indeed, that defendant Wray kept a copy of the book on a shelf in his GPD office. Wray and his GPD codefendants employed uncannily similar methods to those of OCID — employing a secret upper-story location, used by certain white members of a special intelligence unit, at the edge of downtown Greensboro, outfitting the unit with sophisticated surveillance and recording equipment, changing the internal structure of the GPD so that the special intelligence officers reported directly to defendants Wray and Brady; and covertly gathering intelligence on persons not reasonably suspected of wrongdoing. Defendants' targets were plaintiffs and other black GPD officers.