Twitter suspends anti-cop site's account after owner Steven Sutcliffe puts bounty on LAPD officers' heads
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: The Los Angeles Police Protective League took legal action against a website called ‘killercop.com' on March 24. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of Officers Adam Gross, Adrian Rodriguez, and Douglas Panameno, asking the portal to remove the photos and other identifying information of officers from the website. Now, as per the latest update, Twitter has suspended the account of the anti-police website for violating its rules against inciting violence.
The website is owned by Steven Sutcliffe, according to MSN. As per the lawsuit, Sutcliffe wrote in a tweet, "Remember, #Rewards are double all year for #detectives and #female cops," and attached a picture of a monetary reward for killing an LAPD officer.
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Following the suspension, Craig Lally, president of the Los Angeles Police Protective League, said, as per Yahoo!, "We are appreciative of Twitter acting swiftly to take down this dangerous site that called for the murder of Los Angeles police officers."
What is killercop.com?
The website offers a "bounty" for killing police officers after releasing their headshots and other personal information. More than 9,000 photos, names and serial numbers of officers were released to anti-police group Stop LAPD Spying Coalition earlier this month through a public records request, states Yahoo! They then posted the information in an online database called Watch the Watchers, as per Fox News. The group wrote on its website, "This website is intended as a tool to empower community members engaged in copwatch and other countersurveillance practices. You can use it to identify officers who are causing harm in your community. The website’s ease of use also makes it a political statement, flipping the direction of surveillance against the state’s agents. Police have vast information about all of us at their fingertips, yet they move in secrecy."
The website allows users to search for cops by name or serial number. They are taken to a profile page of the searched officer, which includes their photo, serial number, ethnicity, and year of hire. Speaking about the website, LAPD detective Jamie McBride said, "This has never happened before my 32-year career… this is uncharted territory for all of us. These officers are very dedicated to what they're doing in their investigations. They're going to take precautions now and constantly look over their back on their way home from work. When they're out with their families, if somebody… yells your name, they got to realize, is this a friend or is this a foe? They don't know. This is something we've never seen before."
Mayor Karen Bass tweeted, "This is an unacceptable breach that puts the lives of our officers and their families at risk. I expect there to be a full accounting of how this happened and a clear plan to prevent this sort of incident from happening again."
This is an unacceptable breach that puts the lives of our officers and their families at risk.
— Mayor Karen Bass (@MayorOfLA) March 26, 2023
I expect there to be a full accounting of how this happened and a clear plan to prevent this sort of incident from happening again.https://t.co/aIlXBNnqBP
Who is Steven Sutcliffe?
As mentioned, Sutcliffe owns the website. He posted the "sensitive information" on the website and offered a bounty to anyone who killed an officer with the Los Angeles Police Department. LAPPL President Lally said, "This dangerous and abhorrent threat has further endangered every police officer, as well as their families, and we will be asking a judge to immediately intervene to protect our members," reports CBS News.
The plaintiffs in the lawsuit against Sutcliffe claim that the alleged threats and photos of officers being circulated online have caused the officers emotional distress. In an interview, Sutcliffe tagged the lawsuit “malicious.” He said, “It’s retaliatory. It is vindictive and frivolous. Their motion is filled with lies.” However, this is not the first time Sutcliffe is facing similar accusations. In 2003, he was convicted in federal court of felony charges of using a website to threaten executives at Global Crossing Lt, a fiber-optic network company in Beverly Hills, where he worked previously and was removed twice, reports Police1.