Nadine Osman

Muslim Advocates filed a brief in Los Angeles County Superior Court urging the court to order the LA’s Police Department (LAPD) to release information on its 2007 “community mapping” program.

The LAPD initially designed the program to target LA’s Muslim population, so that it could “identify [Muslim] communities . . . which may be susceptible to violent ideologically based extremism.”

Critics argued the LAPD project seemed based on the European experience of isolated Muslim enclaves a model that does not apply to the US, where the Muslim population is far more dispersed.

Although then-LAPD Chief of Police William Bratton announced in November 2007 that the LAPD would abandon the program, Muslim Advocates has spent years trying to get access to information about the LAPD’s plan to “map” law-abiding Muslims throughout LA.

In 2013, Muslim Advocates sent the LAPD a request for public records seeking details about how this program was proposed and enacted. After years of the LAPD refusing to search for and turn over the requested documents, Muslim Advocates filed this petition seeking court intervention.

In a statement to The Muslim News staff Attorney at Muslim Advocates, Juvaria Khan, said, “The LAPD’s failure to satisfy its record requests obligations”, is evidence “they’re trying to hide the details of this controversial proposal from the public.”

She added, “The LAPD’s failure to comply with this records request prevents communities from learning about potentially discriminatory policies public bodies may be undertaking. It is vital that the public have this information in order to prevent the LAPD, or any other law enforcement agencies, from trying to adopt such an ill-conceived and discriminatory program. Given today’s rise in anti-Muslim sentiment, we must continue to stand strong in the struggle for transparency.”