Deputy gang problem documented
Sheriff’s office: A long-awaited report points to there being at least 18 cliques in department Reforms: More oversight in the works after investigation reveals abuses at juvenile halls
“There have been so many pledges to get to the bottom of this issue that go nowhere. They’ve been actively hidden too long.”
— Sean Kennedy, Loyola law professor
For the past several years, Sean Kennedy, a Loyola law professor, and his students noticed a troubling pattern within the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and its well-documented deputy gang problem.
A sheriff downplays or denies the problem of the deputy cliques.
A scandal erupts, usually from a lawsuit or reporting by the Los Angeles Times, exposing one of the deputy gangs and alleged misconduct like lying in court or during investigations.
The sheriff pledges to investigate the issue.
The findings of those investigations — such as those promised by former Sheriffs John Scott and Jim McDonnell — are never released to the public.
And the gangs, some of which have a history of violence and harassment toward fellow department employees and members of the public, live on in rel
New oversight is coming for Los Angeles County’s chaotic juvenile hall system after a state probe found numerous abuses and unsafe living conditions inside two facilities, including examples of staff using physical violence and pepper spray to subdue children.
On Wednesday, state prosecutors and the L.A. County Board of Supervisors together announced they were settling the abuse claims after the results of the Attorney General’s Office investigation were released. The settlement means the county is required to make changes to improve safety at two juvenile halls in Sylmar and downtown L.A., and six youth camps around the county, over four years. The county will appoint an independent monitor to track whether those changes are being implemented.
According to a complaint filed by the state Wednesday
ative secrecy.
Despite a growing list of allegations of misconduct by deputy gangs revealed in various commission reports and external investigations, Kennedy said the Sheriff's Department has struggled to address the issue within its ranks.
To move the needle toward more answers, Kennedy and his students wanted to create a single document that lays out all that is known — findings from federal commissions, county inspector general reports, civilian commission hearings, court documents, news articles, interviews with former deputies — about the department's deputy gangs.
After 24 months, the report was published Wednesday, and documents at least 18 deputy gangs or cliques that are suspected to have been operating within the Sheriff's Department for the past 50 years.
“There have been so many pledges to get to the bottom of this issue that go nowhere,” Kennedy said. “They've been actively hidden too long.”
Sheriff Alex Villanueva introduced a new policy, banning deputies from forming and participating in cliques and subgroups. In August, he also committed to investigating allegations of a deputy gang controlling the Sheriff's Compton Station. The FBI also has ongoing probes into the department's gangs.
The Sheriff's Department called the Loyola Law School report “nonpeer-reviewed,” leaning on “non-academically acceptable citations and unproven allegations as a primary basis for content.
“The Department will examine the report and extrapolate everything which may be helpful towards positive organizational change,” the Sheriff's Department said Wednesday through a spokesman.
“The totality of the evidence, when viewed as a whole is very strong, that there is a longstanding, internal gang problem that goes unaddressed in the department,” Kennedy
said, responding to the department's comments. For accuracy, Kennedy said he ran the finalized report by five former high-ranking Sheriff's Department officials who recently retired.
Some of the gangs profiled in the report have been inactive for decades. Others are characterized more as subgroups with no evidence of gang-like activity.
However, several other deputy gangs, such as the Banditos, Vikings and Executioners, are suspected to be active and carry with them a slew of allegations of violence, harassment and intimidation toward other department employees and members of the public, the report said.
Kennedy said he worries most about how these deputy gangs harm the communities they police. Most of the known deputy gangs operate within sheriff's stations located in communities that are inhabited predominantly by people of color, the report said.
Operating out of the Sheriff's Compton Station, the Executioners are alleged to have hosted celebrations after a deputy shot someone, later inking the deputy involved in the shooting with the gang's symbol, a skull wearing a Nazi helmet with “CPT” on front and rifle encircled by flames, the report said, referencing Austreberto Gonzalez, a deputy at the station who shared the account during a 2020 deposition. Black and female deputies are reportedly barred from joining the gang.
The Vikings gang previously operating out of the Lynnwood Station, has been accused by Black and Latino residents of taking part in shootings, killings, beatings, racial profiling and illegal searches in an effort to terrorize the community.
Some deputy gangs found themselves at the center of wide-ranging investigations into deputy misconduct, including the county's jail abuse scandals that stained the department's reputation from the late 1990s and well into the 2010s, leading to the convictions of more than a dozen sheriff's officials, including former Sheriff Lee Baca and former Undersheriff Paul Tanaka, a recorded member of the Vikings, according to the report.
The report calls on the Sheriff's Department to address the gang issue by enforcing its new policy, prohibiting subgroups. Also, it asks the department to require existing employees to fill out a “tattoo image form,” something Villanueva and McDonnell have previously refused to subject their deputies to. Any findings the department has on its cliques or gangs should also be made public through the public records act, the report said.
Other suggested solutions include having prosecutors ask deputies who take part as witnesses in criminal cases to state whether or not they are affiliated in a deputy gang.
“Really they need to just release the info and let various people and groups investigate,” Kennedy said of the Sheriff's Department. “If it's just as some say, a harmless social group, then nothing will come of it. But the more startling allegations … that should concern us all.”