L.A. police union files lawsuit demanding takedown of ‘killer cops’ website

Three LAPD officers and their union, the Los Angeles Police Protective League, have filed a lawsuit aimed at taking down a website and Twitter account titled “Killer Cops” due to concerns its content incites violence against officers, the union announced Friday, March 24.

The lawsuit names Steven Sutcliffe as the defendant and alleges he has inflicted “intentional” emotional distress and endangered LAPD officers’ safety on his KillerCops.com site and Twitter account. The suit claims Sutcliffe downloaded sensitive information received by the Stop LAPD Spying Coalition and posted it on Twitter, and makes mention of several other tweets listing apparent bounties for the killing of officers.

“He (Sutcliffe) essentially put a bounty on the lives of police officers. My clients, they go to bed at night and they’re in fear for their safety,” the plantiffs’ attorney Jacob Kalinski said. “It is the goal of this lawsuit to have Mr. Sutcliffe’s threats removed from Twitter or from wherever else so that there are no individuals out there who act upon (his) promise to pay people essentially to kill police officers.”

Sutcliffe’s account has also been reported to Twitter by Kalinski, who said he had not received a “substantive response” from the social media company as of Friday afternoon.

The lawsuit also seeks damages in excess of $25,000, as well as relief for attorneys’ fees and costs associated with a trial.

In a Friday interview, the Los Angeles-based Sutcliffe, 61, said he does not wish for anyone to harm police officers and is not advocating for violence on his website and Twitter account. Sutcliffe, who described himself as an actor and publisher, said his content does not pose a real-life risk to police officers and is protected by the First Amendment.

The lawsuit, Sutcliffe claimed, is an attempt at “viewpoint censorship” that began when the site was first published in 1998. He also claimed he is a victim of retaliation for…