It‘s a miserable LAPD practice that antedates Jack Webb and Dragnet, and it’s at least as antiquated: sending cops in civvies to entrap and entice men who like other men by posing as like-minded persons.But the Los Angeles Police Department — perpetually proclaiming itself short of law-enforcement personnel and now embroiled in a spreading and costly ethics scandal — continues to this very day the custom of detailing officers in plain clothes to entrap gay males in restrooms and other public places to instigate or report sexual activities involving no exchange of money. And until just recently, there appeared to be no hope of ending the tradition — enforced under the California Penal Code 647a, prohibiting lewd conduct — which many gays and others have styled wanton entrapment.
Source: Bad Conduct | L.A. Weekly