When she was called last year to testify against a top Los Angeles police officer, Sgt. Jessica Bell assumed she would be asked about the AirTag.
Bell found the Apple tracking device under her friend’s car during a weekend trip to Palm Springs in 2023. The friend suspected her former domestic partner, Alfred “Al” Labrada, who was then deputy chief of the Los Angeles Police Department, of secretly installing the AirTag to monitor her movements after their breakup. The women contacted San Bernardino County authorities, who began an investigation.
By the time Bell, 44, testified last year, prosecutors had declined to charge Labrada with any crime, but his rise through the LAPD’s highest ranks had already gone awry. Once considered a leading candidate to become the city’s next police chief, Labrada was at risk of being fired for allegedly lying to LAPD investigators and trying to cover up his actions.
Disciplinary proceedings against LAPD officers are conducted as mini-trials, held behind closed doors under state laws that protect officers’ privacy. According to her attorney, Bell thought her role would be limited to describing the AirTag she found — and that anything she said would remain sealed.
Instead, according to her lawyer, she was faced with a series of questions that turned personal, with Labrada’s lawyer asking her about problems in her former marriage.
The disciplinary committee found Labrada guilty of installing the tracking device and he resigned from the department. In the months that followed, details of Bell’s testimony spread among her colleagues, according to a lawsuit she filed this year against the city of Los Angeles.
The lawsuit is one of dozens filed by LAPD employees in recent years alleging they faced retaliation after reporting alleged wrongdoing. Bell and others say testimony that was supposed to remain confidential during so-called Rights Board hearings or in internal affairs interviews was later used against them.
In the months after Bell testified against Labrada, according to her lawsuit, she was denied a position in the department’s training division. Bell said through her attorney that she was investigated by the department for at least three separate complaints, including one alleging she did not tell the truth during Labrada’s disciplinary hearing.
His alleged lie? Testifying that his daughter had been traumatized by the ordeal of finding the hidden tracking device.
Bell — known professionally as Jessica Zamorano, according to her lawsuit — declined to comment. She said through her attorney that internal affairs investigators told her it was Labrada who filed the complaint.
The accusation that she lied sparked a separate investigation by the state Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training, the law enforcement accreditation board, putting her at risk of losing her police license.
Bell also filed a complaint with the inspector general’s office, writing that she was “initially afraid to come forward because I feared retaliation for speaking out and cooperating in the investigation against Labrada.”
Bell’s attorney, Nicole Castronovo, said she was disgusted that the LAPD allowed Labrada to “weaponize Internal Affairs to continue waging this campaign of terror against my client.”
Al Labrada, former deputy chief of the Los Angeles Police Department, holds a press conference in Beverly Hills on October 17, 2023 to address allegations that he used an Apple AirTag to secretly monitor his former romantic partner’s movements.
(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)
Labrada confirmed to the Times that he has filed multiple complaints against Bell and Dawn Silva, his former domestic partner, who is also an LAPD officer.
He said he hoped the department would examine the veracity of the statements made by the two women during its disciplinary hearing. He said the allegations against Bell were based on her conversations with her ex-husband, which led him to question her veracity. The disciplinary board wouldn’t let her call the ex-husband or others as witnesses, effectively torpedoing her case, Labrada said.
Labrada admits that the AirTag belonged to him, but maintains that he did not hide it to follow his former girlfriend.
“It’s all about financial gain for Ms. Silva and Jessica, that’s all,” he said. “In my opinion, she made falsified statements not only in the police report but also before the rights commission.”
He filed his own lawsuit against the city of Los Angeles and former Police Chief Michel Moore, alleging that Moore conspired to oust a rival for the chief’s job.
Labrada was cleared of any wrongdoing in the AirTag case by the state’s law enforcement accreditation board, a result that allows him to retain his license to wear a badge in the state.
Labrada has publicly spoken out about what he sees as mistreatment by the department, making numerous appearances on pro-law enforcement podcasts to announce an upcoming tell-all book about his time as a Los Angeles cop.
He claims his case was handled differently from those of other senior officials accused of misconduct, who, because of their close relationships with former bosses, were allowed to keep their jobs or retire quietly with their pensions.
Officer-on-officer retaliation has been a problem within the LAPD for decades — and past reports have criticized how the department investigates such cases.
The LAPD has long had a policy that prohibits retaliation against officers who report misconduct, and officers who believe they have been wronged can report problems to the department’s ombudsman or file complaints with internal affairs or the inspector general’s office.
Retaliation can take many forms, including poor job evaluations, harassment, demotions and even terminations, according to LAPD attorneys and staff who filed the lawsuit.
Fearing consequences, some police officers began posting about misconduct anonymously on social media or recruiting surrogates to convene police commission hearings to raise allegations of wrongdoing on their behalf.
Sometimes witnesses don’t come forward for fear of being disciplined for violating department rules about immediately reporting misconduct.
Others argue that the department’s disciplinary system allows opportunistic officers to take advantage of complaints to settle grievances with colleagues, distract themselves from their own problems or earn a big salary.
LAPDCmdr. Lillian Carranza — who sued the department for reporting questionable crime statistics and misogyny, and who was also sued for her supervision of others — declined to discuss Bell’s case, but said that in general, after 36 years on the job, “I don’t see the department doing anything to protect employees who blow the whistle or report misconduct.”
“What I’ve seen is they’re pushed aside, they’re (labeled) as problem employees and very quickly they’re persona non grata,” Carranza said.
Although the department accepts all complaints from the public, supervisors can be selective about what topics are investigated, according to Carranza, who alleged the process is often tinged with favoritism or fear of being targeted by the police union.
“At the end of the day, the LAPD can’t investigate itself — we can’t investigate it ourselves because we have too many competing interests,” she said. “We need an outside agency to investigate us, especially cases that involve serious misconduct and are not captured on body cameras.”
Bell alleged that the retaliation against her had been going on for months.
A 15-year veteran of the department, Bell has worked in patrol for most of his career, with brief stints in vice and internal affairs. When an opening arose in the training division, where Silva also works, she applied and was chosen for the position.
Her former Olympic division captain sent a glowing email as she prepared to leave the station in early 2024, asking her colleagues to join him in congratulating their “beloved” sergeant. Suddenly, according to his lawsuit, the offer was rescinded with little explanation.
She alleged in her lawsuit that a close friend of Labrada pulled strings to keep her out of the job.
The top LAPD official who blocked his transfer, Bell wrote in his complaint to the LAPD inspector general, “constantly calls and checks on Labrada and offers him his vacation home.”
