The Los Angeles district attorney has dropped felony charges against a police officer who secretly recorded his colleagues making racist remarks.

Los Angeles Police Department Officer Daniel Flores was charged in July with 16 felony counts after submitting audio to internal affairs in early 2025. The tapes, recorded within the LAPD’s recruitment division, captured officers making explicit remarks and were first disclosed by the Los Angeles Times.

District Attorney Nathan Hochman had initially charged Flores under California’s decades-old eavesdropping statute, which mandates the consent of all parties present to legally record conversations. The original charges carried a maximum sentence of 13 years in prison.

The charges sparked swift backlash, particularly from Flores’ attorney, Alan Jackson. Speaking to the LA Times in July, Jackson warned that the case communicated that “if you document bigotry inside the LAPD, you will be the one who ends up in a courtroom. It tells them the safe move is to hear slurs and say nothing.”

LAPD officer still faces misdemeanor charges

On Wednesday, Hochman maintained that Flores breached the law, but announced that prosecutors would reduce all 16 felony counts to misdemeanors. The change will allow Flores to enter a diversion agreement, enabling him to avoid prison time provided he remains law-abiding for a year. Jackson did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday morning.

Hochman stated that his office was “listening to the impact the case was having on potential whistleblowers” when deciding to scale back the charges, acknowledging that the initial prosecution “sent the wrong message” to the public. While describing the comments by the other officers as “hate speech,” the district attorney noted there was insufficient evidence of a hate crime to bring criminal charges against them.

According to a motion filed by prosecutors, the secretly taped conversations included officers joking about a famous Latino baseball pitcher dying from eating “too many tacos,” relying on racist tropes about Black people, and describing a young LAPD recruit as “rapeable” because they were “someone who could be taken advantage of.”

Although Hochman denounced the recorded comments on Wednesday, he maintained that Flores should face consequences for breaking privacy laws. He expressed hope that the decision would encourage future whistleblowers to work alongside prosecutors through authorized channels.

“Here we have an LAPD officer who should know the law better than anyone else,” Hochman said, adding that his office collaborates “every single day with individuals who are whistleblowers who have brought wrongdoing forward through legitimate means.”

Flores was previously found guilty in a separate internal LAPD inquiry and handed a 22-day suspension without pay, according to the LA Times, though it remains unclear if the penalty was served. The department also initiated confidential disciplinary proceedings against the officers who made the remarks, but has not confirmed whether any disciplinary action has been enforced.