The Seattle Police Officers Guild (SPOG) has obtained a temporary restraining order blocking the City of Seattle from releasing photos of officers in response to a public disclosure request.

Felipe Hemming, a retired firefighter who contributes to the website Photography Is Not a Crime, filed a request for officers' badge photos in January.

"There's nothing nefarious about it," Hemming said in an interview. He talked about situations where the names or badge numbers of officers on the frontlines of protests aren't visible. "We want to be able to speculate with some reasonable basis who that employee is."

Photos of officers would have been helpful in determining, to take one example, the identity of the officer captured in a video pulling photographer Jay Trinidad's hair during a protest last fall.

The city planned to disclose the photos to Hemming tomorrow. But SPOG went to court yesterday to obtain the restraining order. The guild claims in a legal filing (PDF) that the photos are exempt under the state's public records law, there's no legitimate public interest in them, they could be used to replicate access cards to secure buildings, the photos "increase the likelihood of any and all safety threats," and that Hemming isn't really a journalist.

SPOG's attorneys declined to comment and the guild itself could not be reached for comment.

Hemming, who is based in California, believes the guild's claims are without merit. He said other departments have simply turned over their yearbooks in response to his requests for officer photos. "What harm is there?" he said. "None at all. I just want to hold government accountable. You want to come after me if I don't follow the law. You gotta comply, too."

The next hearing in the case is scheduled for May 24.