A blistering new official investigation decries violent, lawless \u201cdeputy gangs\u201d that continue to wield extraordinary power within the Los Angeles Sheriff\u2019s Department. The report delivers a call to action for new Sheriff Robert Luna: \u201cIt is time to eradicate this 50-year plague upon the County of Los Angeles.\u201d
The report identifies at \u201cleast a half dozen\u201d active gangs and cliques \u2014 and names them: the Executioners, the Banditos, the Regulators, the Spartans, the Gladiators, the Cowboys, and the Reapers.
These groups pose a threat to the general public \u2014 deputies hoping to prove themselves worthy of gang membership routinely seek out violent encounters with the public, the investigation reports \u2014 as well as to the internal command-and-control structure of LASD. The gangs \u201cundermine supervision, destroy public trust, are discriminatory, disruptive, and act contrary to \u2026 professional policing,\u201d the report concludes.
Perhaps most alarming, the investigation reveals that in recent years \u201ctattooed deputy gang members\u201d have risen to \u201cthe highest levels\u201d of department leadership. It calls out recent former Sheriff Alex Villanueva (who lost his 2022 reelection bid) for betraying promises of reform by installing gang members as his right-hand men. Villanueva, the report says, \u201cat minimum tolerated, if not rewarded deputy gangs.\u201d
The new investigation describes a deputy-gang culture that is \u201cdeeply embedded\u201d within LASD, calling it a \u201ccancer\u201d that \u201cmust be excised.\u201d Conducted by the special counsel to the Civilian Oversight Commission \u2014 the county body that watchdogs LASD \u2014 the 70-page investigation relied on interviews with nearly 80 witnesses as well as dozens of depositions, court exhibits, and civil lawsuits.
LASD is the nation\u2019s second-largest municipal law enforcement agency. Its deputies are sworn to \u201cserve and protect\u201d more than four million residents \u2014 as well as to operate America\u2019s largest county jail system. Yet LASD has long been riven by lawlessness. Gangs and cliques were first decried in LASD in 1973, with the identification of a group called the Little Devils. A landmark report by the Kolts Commission, issued in the wake of the Rodney King beating, denounced the problem of deputy cliques publically in 1992. A 2021 report commissioned by L.A. County underscored that deputy-gangs had cost taxpayers at least $55 million in court judgments and settlements, and it excoriated leadership that \u201ccan\u2019t or won\u2019t\u201d implement gang reforms.
In the past, official reports have minced words around the \u201cgang\u201d terminology; this new report insists that common behaviors by deputy cliques meet the definition of \u201claw enforcement gangs\u201d under the state\u2019s penal code, and that both cliques and gangs \u201cmust be eradicated\u201d in the name of public safety.
LASD gangs are based out the department\u2019s geographic precincts, which the report calls out for operating as quasi-independent \u201cfiefdoms.\u201d For example, the Executioners run out of Compton Station, while East L.A. Station is notorious as the home of the Banditos. Much like street gangs, the various LASD gangs mark themselves with tattoos; the Executioner ink is described as \u201ca skeleton holding an automatic rifle.\u201d
The report insists that the gangs operate \u201cmuch like the Mafia\u201d and that only \u201cmade\u201d members are entitled to the tattoo. Deputies eager to join a gang are notorious for \u201cchasing ink\u201d \u2014 or engaging in violence toward county residents, as a means of proving their moxie \u201cin the hope of becoming members.\u201d This has led to a rash of \u201cexcessive force or other forms of unconstitutional policing,\u201d the report says.
It describes one \u201cchasing ink\u201d episode in which deputies transporting a shooting victim to the hospital allegedly took an \u201coff-route\u201d detour and instead \u201cassaulted the victim.\u201d Other deputies \u201cchasing ink,\u201d the investigation states, have actively tried to \u201cget into shootings.\u201d It elaborates: \u201cThese deputies would follow a suspect believed to have a gun so that a shooting would be justified.\u201d
The gangs pose a double threat, the report states. Internally, they exercise unwarranted power, with clique-member \u201cshot callers\u201d exercising authority that should be reserved for department brass. \u201cDeputy cliques run the stations or units where they exist,\u201d the investigation states, \u201cas opposed to the sergeants, lieutenants and the captain who are charged with the duty.\u201d
The gangs themselves are openly discriminatory \u2014 creating precinct in-groups defined by race, ethnicity, and gender \u2014 with non-gang members often subject to scorn and abuse. These range from a failure to send back-up to violent crime scenes (leaving unaffiliated deputies dangerously exposed) up to \u201cassaultive behavior against fellow deputies.\u201d The presence of gangs and cliques is also anathema to transparency and trust: The investigation underscores that members not only \u201coperate in secrecy\u201d they will even \u201clie in reports to protect each other.\u201d
The gangs also pose a clear-and-present danger to the public. \u201cMost troubling,\u201d the investigation reports, \u201cthey create rituals that valorize violence.\u201d This includes holding \u201cshooting parties\u201d to celebrate member-deputies who open fire on suspects, as well as \u201cauthorizing deputies who have shot a community member to add embellishments to their common gang tattoos\u201d \u2014 think: adding plumes of \u201csmoke\u201d to the muzzle of a tattooed gun. The report describes myriad other \u201charmful acts\u201d by deputy gang members, including \u201cfalsified police reports, unlawful searches and seizures, [and] discriminatory enforcement of law.\u201d
The recent-former Sheriff Alex Villanueva won office in 2018 after campaigning as a reformer. But if Villanueva paid lip service to ending LASD\u2019s gang culture, his hiring practices told a much different story. \u201cSheriff Villanueva promoted Timothy Murakami, a tattooed Caveman, to Undersheriff and Lawrence Del Mese, a tattooed Grim Reaper, to Chief of Staff,\u201d the investigation reports. (The report states that both Villanueva and Murakami refused to participate in the investigation, while Del Mese testified he\u2019d had his tattoos removed when joining the Villanueva regime, because they were a \u201cliability\u201d and \u201ca bad look.\u201d)
LASD\u2019s struggle with deputy gangs has been an open secret within law enforcement. And the report upbraids the county DA\u2019s office for recklessness in not disclosing the gang affiliations of deputies who also serve as prosecution witnesses. \u201cThe failure to obtain and to disclose potentially exonerating or impeaching testimony favorable to the defense,\u201d it argues, \u201craises significant constitutional issues.\u201d
The report concludes with a detailed set of policy recommendations for uprooting the department\u2019s gangs. The moves range from prohibiting new tattoos, to breaking up precinct cliques, to reforming command structures to limit precinct autonomy. It insists that the elimination of deputy cliques and gangs is not only \u201cconstitutionally permissible\u201d but a \u201cconstitutional imperative.\u201d
New sheriff Robert Luna also campaigned as a reformer. But unlike the Trumpy Villanueva, Luna\u2019s actions are, so far, matching his rhetoric. In mid-February, Luna announced the creation of a new Office of Constitutional Policing he insisted would be tasked to \u201ceradicate all deputy gangs from this department.\u201d
Luna, an LASD outsider who last served as police chief of Long Beach, insisted: \u201cI will have an absolute zero tolerance for this type of conduct.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n