UC Irvine School of Law
Intellectual Property, Arts & Technology Clinic
Press Freedom and Transparency Team
Susan E. Seager, Adjunct Professor
sseager1.clinic@law.uci.edu

P.O. Box 5479
Irvine, CA 92616-5479
O: (949) 824-4234
C: (310) 890-8991

November 4, 2020
Via U.S. mail and email (sibmedia24hrs@lasd.org)
Sheriff Alex Villanueva
Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department
211 W. Temple St.,
Los Angeles, CA 90012
Re: Unlawful Arrest and Seizure of Journalist Pablo Unzueta’s Camera and Cell Phone
Dear Sheriff Villanueva:
We represent journalist Pablo Unzueta, a staff member and video editor of the Daily 49er
newspaper at California State University, Long Beach and a freelance journalist. On September
8, 2020, Mr. Unzueta was filming and reporting on a protest in South Los Angeles. He was
wearing press credentials from his previous college, Mt. San Antonio College, and carrying a
camera to document the protest.
Despite identifying himself as a photojournalist, Mr. Unzueta was arrested by Los
Angeles County Sheriff’s Department (LASD) deputies for allegedly failing to disperse after the
deputies declared the protest an unlawful assembly. Mr. Unzueta’s cell phone and camera were
confiscated by your deputies. Through counsel, Mr. Unzueta repeatedly requested that his
camera and cell phone be returned to him. Deputies eventually returned his camera, but neither
his cell phone nor his camera’s memory card have been returned to him. He also has repeatedly
requested a copy of his arrest/incident report without success.
Your department’s arrest of Mr. Unzueta, seizure of his cell phone and camera, and
continued failure of your department to return Mr. Unzueta’s cell phone and camera memory
card violates Mr. Unzueta’s rights under the First Amendment, Fourth Amendment, the
Reporter’s Shield Law as codified in Evidence Code section 1070 and article 1, section 2(b) of
COMMUNITY AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT │ CRIMINAL JUSTICE │DOMESTIC VIOLENCE │ENVIRONMENTAL LAW
IMMIGRANT RIGHTS  INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY, ARTS & TECHNOLOGY │INTERNATIONAL JUSTICE

 Sheriff Alex Villanueva
Page 2 of 5

the California Constitution, and the federal Privacy Protection Act of 1980. To vindicate his
rights, Mr. Unzueta requests the following:
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The immediate return of his cell phone and camera memory card;
Assurance by the LASD that it will not present the case to the Los Angeles
District Attorney’s Office for prosecution;
Providing a copy of his arrest report/incident report;
An apology from LASD for its unlawful actions; and
An investigation into deputies’ apparent use of personal cell phones to photograph
Mr. Unzueta and other arrestees and deletion of any such photographs.

The Arrest of Mr. Unzueta Was Unlawful
Sheriff’s deputies had no basis to arrest Mr. Unzueta. At the time of his arrest, the protest
had ended, and Mr. Unzueta was on his way to his car. He was not behind the deputy skirmish
line. A truck full of deputies passed by, and a deputy pointed at Mr. Unzueta and said, “Get
him.” Mr. Unzueta repeatedly identified himself as a member of the press and as a student
journalist, displaying his student press badge, but the deputy who arrested him ignored him.
Mr. Unzueta was subjected to excessive force in violation of the Fourth Amendment. The
deputies latched his handcuffs so tightly that his hands became numb. The deputies tossed him
into the back of a truck covered with pepper balls, which ruptured upon impact, causing pepper
spray to go into his face, eyes, and mouth, and called him a homophobic slur.
When deputies transported Mr. Unzueta and others to the Twin Towers jail facility in
downtown Los Angeles for booking, the deputies cranked up the van’s heater, causing Mr.
Unzueta to sweat profusely and the pepper spray on his skin to reactivate.
Deputies also appeared to use their cell phones to photograph Mr. Unzueta and others in
the back of the truck. It is not clear why the photographs were taken, but it is possible that they
were taken as trophy photographs for the deputies’ personal use. Mr. Unzueta demands an
investigation into these photographs and deletion of any such photographs.
As you know, earlier this year, the widow of NBA star Kobe Bryant sued your
Department, alleging that your deputies used their personal phones to snap pictures of the bodies
at the scene of the helicopter crash that killed Bryant, his daughter, and others.
At the time of his arrest, Mr. Unzueta was exercising his First Amendment right to gather
news. See Contra Costa Newspapers, Inc. v. Superior Court, 61 Cal. App. 4th 862, 866 (1998)
(“[N]ews gathering is an activity protected by the First Amendment . . . .”) (citing Branzburg v.
Hayes, 408 U.S. 665, 681 (1972)). Videotaping and photographing police activity are protected
by the First Amendment. See Fordyce v. City of Seattle, 55 F.3d 436, 439 (9th Cir. 1995)
(acknowledging a First Amendment right to “film matters of public interest” in the context of a
journalist videotaping a protest); Adkins v. Limtiaco, 537 F. App’x. 721, 722 (9th Cir. 2013)
(holding plaintiff adequately pled First and Fourth Amendment violations where police officers
seized his cell phone, which he used to photograph police activity).

 Sheriff Alex Villanueva
Page 3 of 5

Even after LASD declared the protest an unlawful assembly, Mr. Unzueta still had the
right to continue reporting on the protest. In fact, he was complying with LASD orders and had
begun leaving the area when deputies arrested him. LASD’s arrest of him was therefore
unlawful.
We note that on October 30, 2020, Los Angeles Police Department Deputy Chief
Dominic Choi issued an internal memo (attached), stating that reporters are permitted to report
on protests even after officers order the crowd to disperse, and that reporters are permitted to
remain behind police skirmish lines in an apparent recognition that the First Amendment protects
the right of reporters to remain in place even after police have declared an unlawful assembly.
Mr. Unzueta denies that he disobeyed any order to disperse and has not been charged by
the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office. We note that prosecutors recently refused to file
criminal charges against KPCC radio reporter Josie Huang after LASD deputies wrongfully and
brutally arrested her while she was lawfully filming an arrest and attempting to back away from
the arrest after deputies instructed her to do so. We believe the District Attorney’s Office would
decline to file charges against Mr. Unzueta as well. We request that LASD announce that it will
not present Mr. Unzueta’s case to the District Attorney’s Office.
The Seizure of Mr. Unzueta’s Camera and Cell Phone Was Unlawful
In addition to unlawfully arresting Mr. Unzueta, LASD illegally seized Mr. Unzueta’s
camera and cell phone and continues to hold his camera’s memory card and cell phone. The fact
that the camera was returned does not mitigate the harm; the seizure of the camera was illegal in
the first place. The continued seizure of the camera’s memory card and cell phone is also illegal.
The deputies claim that the camera contained no memory card. This is incorrect. Mr. Unzueta
was actively photographing and videotaping the protest with his camera. His camera would have
notified him if the card was missing when he was filming. It is extremely unlikely that the
memory card would have fallen out of his camera during his arrest, given the numerous steps it
takes to remove the memory card from the camera. Mr. Unzueta’s camera memory card and his
cell phone contain two years’ worth of photographs and videos and the loss of that work has
caused great harm to Mr. Unzueta.
There was no legal basis to seize or withhold Mr. Unzueta’s cell phone, camera, or
memory card. The Fourth Amendment guarantees “[t]he right of the people to be secure in their
persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.” U.S. CONST.
amend. IV; see CAL. CONST. art. 1, § 13 (containing virtually identical language). As a member
of the press, the search and seizure of Mr. Unzueta’s items warrant even greater scrutiny under
the Fourth Amendment. See Zurcher v. Stanford Daily, 436 U.S. 547, 564 (1978) (“Where the
materials sought to be seized may be protected by the First Amendment, the requirements of the
Fourth Amendment must be applied with ‘scrupulous exactitude.’”) (quoting Stanford v. Texas,
379 U.S. 476, 485 (1965)). The Supreme Court in Riley v. California, 573 U.S. 373, 403 (2014),
applied the Fourth Amendment to the search of a cell phone incident to an arrest, holding: “Our
answer to the question of what police must do before searching a cell phone seized incident to an
arrest is accordingly simple—get a warrant.”

 Sheriff Alex Villanueva
Page 4 of 5

California law, however, forbids search warrants for reporters’ unpublished materials
with only a few exceptions that do not apply here. California Penal Code section 1524(g) plainly
states “[n]o warrant shall issue for any item or items described in Section 1070 of the Evidence
Code.” Cal. Pen. Code § 1524(g) (emphasis added). California’s Reporter Shield Law, codified
in California Evidence Code section 1070 and later enshrined in article 1, section 2(b) of the
California Constitution, protects reporters from being held in contempt of court if they refuse to
reveal “unpublished information obtained or prepared in gathering, receiving or processing of
information for communication to the public.” Cal. Evid. Code § 1070; CAL. CONST. art. 1, §
2(b).
Mr. Unzueta is a reporter who is protected by California Penal Code section 1524(g) and
the California Shield Law. The state’s shield law protects a “reporter or other person connected
with or employed upon a newspaper, magazine or other periodical publication.” Cal. Evid. Code
§ 1070(a). Mr. Unzueta falls within the definition of a journalist because he works as a staff
member and video editor on his school newspaper, which is a periodical publication. Courts have
held that this broad language protects a wide variety of journalists, including freelancers,
bloggers, and student journalists. See, e.g., People v. Von Villas, 10 Cal. App. 4th 201, 231-32
(1992) (holding that freelancers for Hustler Magazine were protected by California’s shield law);
O'Grady v. Superior Court, 139 Cal. App. 4th 1423, 1461-66 (2006) (same for website bloggers
who wrote exclusively about Apple products); California v. Chavez, No. 99M11384 (Cal. Super.
Ct. Sacramento Cnty. Apr. 7, 2000) (same for California State University, Sacramento editor for
student newspaper). The definition of “unpublished information” under section 1070 is broad
and “includes, but is not limited to, all notes, outtakes, photographs, tapes or other data of
whatever sort not itself disseminated to the public through a medium of communication, whether
or not published information based upon or related to such material has been disseminated.”
Evid. § 1070(c) (emphasis added). Mr. Unzueta was gathering information to be used in a news
report, thus the information contained in his cell phone and memory card is “unpublished
information” under section 1070. Penal Code section 1524(g) thus prohibits LASD from
obtaining a search warrant for the content of Mr. Unzueta’s devices.
The seizure of Mr. Unzueta’s devices also violates the federal Privacy Protection Act of
1980 (“PPA”), 42 U.S.C. § 2000aa. The PPA makes it illegal for a government officer or
employee “to search for or seize any work product materials” or documentary materials, related
to the prosecution or investigation of a criminal offense, “possessed by a person reasonably
believed to have a purpose to disseminate to the public a newspaper, . . . broadcast, or other
similar form of public communication.” 42 U.S.C. § 2000aa(a), (b).
The seizure of Mr. Unzueta’s cell phone and camera as he was reporting on a protest is a
clear violation of the statute. See 42 U.S.C. § 2000aa-7(a) (“‘Documentary materials’ . . .
includes, but is not limited to, written or printed materials, photographs. . . .”) (emphasis added).
None of the exceptions listed under the PPA are applicable to Mr. Unzueta. There is no reason to
believe the seizure of his items was necessary to prevent death or serious bodily injury. Nor was
there reason to believe that notice of a subpoena for his devices would result in their destruction.
LASD’s withholding of the devices in violation of the law is an affront to the very law it
purports to uphold. See Riley, 573 U.S. at 401 (“[T]he warrant requirement is an important

 Sheriff Alex Villanueva
Page 5 of 5

working part of our machinery of government, not merely an inconvenience to be somehow
weighed against the claims of police efficiency.”) (internal quotations omitted). We request Mr.
Unzueta’s cell phone and memory card be returned immediately. LASD had no justification for
seizing his devices at the time of his arrest and has no justification for retaining them now.
In a similar case in San Francisco, the San Francisco Police Department unlawfully
seized freelance journalist Bryan Carmody’s electronic devices during the execution of several
search warrants. Mr. Carmody filed a claim against SFPD, resulting in the search warrants being
nullified and San Francisco paying a $369,000 settlement to Carmody for his damages. San
Francisco to Pay $369,000 to Journalist for Police Raids, L.A. TIMES (Mar. 3, 2020),
https://www.latimes.com/ world-nation/story/2020-03-03/san-francisco-to-pay-369k-tojournalist-for-police-raids.
Thank you for your attention to this request. We look forward to your prompt return of
Mr. Unzueta’s cell phone, camera memory card and arrest/incident report, assurance that your
office will not seek criminal charges against Mr. Unzueta, an apology to Mr. Unzueta, and
investigation into the use of the deputies’ personal cell phones to photograph Mr. Unzueta and
other arrestees. We are available to discuss this further.
Sincerely,

UC Irvine School of Law
Jack Lerner, Esq. (CA Bar #220661)
Susan E. Seager, Esq. (CA Bar #204824)
Hedyeh Tirgardoon, certified law student
Paniz Arab, certified law student
Benjamin Whittle, certified law student
cc: LASD Inspector General Max Huntsman
(via U.S. mail and email (mhuntsman@oig.lacounty.gov))