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 suspension, reports the Los Angeles Times. “YouTube has reached out to us and has restored the LAPDHQ account,” the LAPD said on X. “The brutal attack has been removed. Our scheduled public information and content will resume as usual.”
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 uses YouTube 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 ... asking for the public’s help in identifying the suspects ...We have appealed the suspension and have been denied,” the department wrote. LAPD described the attack, in which 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. The two assailants fled on bicycles.