Violent video prompts YouTube to briefly suspend LAPD’s account
The Los Angeles Police Department was briefly barred from YouTube after posting footage of a violent attack to seek the public’s help identifying the assailants. By Sunday, the department’s account was restored but without the video that prompted the brief suspension.
“YouTube has reached out to us and has restored the LAPDHQ account,” the LAPD said on social media site X, formerly known as Twitter. “The brutal attack has been removed. Our scheduled public information and content will resume as usual.”
YouTube, which is owned by Google, didn’t provide comment Sunday.
The LAPD has an extensive YouTube channel, with 69,000 subscribers. The department regularly posts videos, including graphic footage from officers’ body cameras. Some videos come with warnings about the violent imagery.
The department also uses its YouTube channel to post interviews with Chief Michel Moore, public service announcements and department news. The department said on X that its YouTube account was suspended Saturday “after we posted a video of a brutal attack in Pacific Division asking for the public’s help in identifying the suspects.”
“We have appealed the suspension and have been denied,” the department wrote.
The Los Angeles Police Department is considering changing department policy to increase random reviews of body camera recordings.
LAPD Officer Drake Madison told The Times on Saturday that the video that prompted the suspension was of a violent incident in the Venice area. He declined to comment further on the YouTube suspension.
A news release last week from the department described the attack and how two people punched a man and hit him in the head with bolt cutters. The LAPD said the man sustained “significant injuries to his head” and was knocked unconscious in the Sept. 28 incident near the intersection of Speedway and Market Street. The two assailants fled on bicycles.
A video of the incident that accompanied the news release was removed “for violating YouTube’s Terms of Service,” according to a note on YouTube.
Video of the incident also is posted on the X account run by the LAPD, where it remains.
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