Gangs within the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department are banned with new policy

The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department announced a new policy Wednesday that bans gangs among deputies in the department, an issue county officials say has spanned decades.

Several past investigations by the county's Office of the Inspector General (OIG) have identified 19 gangs within the sheriff's department over the years — which have been tied to at least 59 legal claims going back to the early 1990s that have resulted in more than $54 million in settlement payouts for incidents tied to these alleged crime groups.

The new policy — entitled "Prohibition - Law Enforcement Gangs and Hate Groups" — bars participating in, or getting others to take part in, a so-called law enforcement gang and requires LASD to investigate allegations of such groups and potentially refer them for prosecution.

It comes nearly three years after California banned so-called law enforcement gangs under Cal. Penal Code § 13670 and more than a year after the state's Law Enforcement Accountability Reform started prohibiting hate groups within police agencies.

"For the first time in the history of our department, when you go through a process for captain and above, you are asked about tattoos," LA County Sheriff Robert Luna said, referring to tattoos that county investigators have linked to violent deputy gangs in the department.

However, Inspector General Max Huntsman said his office requested to monitor the creation of such a new policy and was denied. He said his office did not know the policy would be announced Wednesday. 

LA County's Sheriff Civilian Oversight Commission — which includes community and faith leaders along with a former federal judge, attorneys and a retired LASD lieutenant — released a scathing 70-page report last year calling deputy gangs a "cancer" in the department with a history going back to at least 1973. The 3000 Boys, Wayside Whities, Banditos and Reapers are just a few of at least 10 mentioned in the report.

The oversight commission issued recommendations for the department.

"And this policy does not seem to at all follow the recommendations of the Civilian Oversight Commission," Huntsman said. "It's legal compliance, though, so it's a step in the right direction."

Huntsman has described the groups as highly secretive, saying they operate under a "kind of a code of silence — much like the Mafia."

Tom Yu, a former LASD deputy who now represents police officers as an attorney, said the tattoos in question are not gang-affiliated.

"The unspoken rule is, if you have a station tattoo, you're not getting promoted," Yu said.

The new LASD policy will take effect in 30 days.

It follows some legal wrangling as a lawsuit recently blocked an investigation by the OIG, following years of allegations of violent organized crime within the law enforcement agency overseeing a county of more than 9 million people. 

A court order blocks county's investigation

Last year, the OIG sent a letter to 35 deputies asking for information about the "Banditos" and the "Executioners," two of the more than two dozen gangs authorities say have been investigated over the years. In the letter, the Inspector General asked deputies — unless they planned to plead the 5th Amendment — to show photos of any tattoos on their left or right leg or any tattoos which may resemble those connected to the two gangs. 

However, the OIG didn't end up continuing that investigation due to a court order blocking it.

The Association for Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs (ALDS), which represents deputies within LASD, sued LA County and the OIG, saying such an investigation would violate constitutional and privacy rights of the deputies as well as labor laws. 

In July 2023, a court ruled in favor of ALDS's allegations of violated labor laws and issued a preliminary injunction that brought the probe to a halt. 

Earlier this month, a hearing in that lawsuit was held in a Los Angeles courtroom. Before the hearing, the American Civil Liberties Union, Check the Sheriff and other community groups gathered outside the courthouse and criticized the sheriff's deputy group for filing the lawsuit, alleging it is protecting violent organized crime within the sheriff's department.

At the time, the president of ALDS released a statement saying the organization "does not defend misconduct" and the deputies are owed due process under the law, calling the ACLU and other advocacy groups in opposition to the lawsuit "anti-cop radicals and other misguided people."

"The ACLU's own website states, 'Every person in this country should have the same basic rights," ALDS President Richard Pippin said in the statement. "Apparently, disdain for law enforcement has led some in their organization to the conclusion that this does not apply to peace officers... Americans understand that due process is what keeps our society safe from developing an out-of-bounds system in which no one's rights are truly guaranteed."

"Banditos" and "Executioners" at center of recent probe

In May of last year, the letter from the Inspector General sent to nearly three dozen deputies noted just two groups.

"The Office of the Inspector General is investigating law enforcement gang participation and police misconduct at the Sheriff's Department pursuant to Penal Code section 13670(b)," reads the letter from Inspector General Huntsman. "Your cooperation is being sought because we believe you may have information regarding one of two groups that may be law enforcement gangs, commonly referred to as the Banditos and Executioners."

In a 2021 report from the OIG, the Banditos is described as a gang operating out of the East LA Sheriff's Station while the Executioners is believed to be a gang based in the Compton Sheriff's Station.

The report, entitled, "50 Years of Deputy Gangs in the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department," was compiled by county investigators and Loyola Law School researchers.

"Bandito leaders refer to themselves as 'shot-callers,' a term borrowed from the leaders of prison gangs," the report states, explaining deputies who are part of the gang share a common leg tattoo that depicts a skeleton that's wearing a sombrero and holding a pistol and has a bushy mustache called a brocha. "If the deputies resist recruitment, the gang tries to 'roll out' the deputies, getting them to quit the East Los Angeles Station."

The report alleges the Banditos have been linked to assaults on other deputies and other violence, which have gone unchecked by LASD leadership. The report describes the group as "gang-like" and promoting of favoritism, racism, sexism and violence.

Eight deputies sued LA County in 2019 over allegations they were beaten, harassed or forced to pay off members of the Banditos. If they didn't pay them off, they'd allegedly be denied backup on dangerous calls, according to the suit.

The Executioners operate out of the Compton Sheriff's Station, with members sharing a common leg tattoo that is sequentially numbered and depicts a skull wearing a Nazi helmet with "CPT" written on the front and a rifle encircled in flames, according to the OIG report.

One deputy interviewed in the report said the Executioners are a "violent gang" that has assaulted other deputies and dominates the station, saying it does not allow in women or African Americans. He said members would hold celebrations after deputy-involved shootings at bars called "998 parties" or "998 debriefs," and the deputy who opened fire would get an Executioner tattoo.

Compton Mayor Aja Brown and other city leaders called for a federal investigation into the sheriff's station in 2020. At the time, she said the Executioners are linked to "known organized gang activity" and "are running rampant and running the Compton Sheriff's Department."

Decades of deputy gang allegations 

Gangs within the department have been identified by not just county investigators but also advocacy groups like the ACLU. Just as the OIG report alleges there's been a history of gangs in the department for 50 years, the ACLU has reached similar findings.

In 2011, the ACLU published a report called "Cruel and Unusual Punishment: How a Savage Gang of Deputies Controls L.A. County Jails," which includes interviews with inmates, jail chaplains and even deputies themselves.

"Several deputies shed light on the deputy gangs that thrive inside the jails," the report reads. "They describe colleagues who treat acts of deputy-on-inmate violence as badges of honor, and spur each other on to commit violent assaults."

In one of the alleged attacks detailed in the report, an inmate was punched over and over again and kicked by deputies with steel-toed boots, leaving him brutally beaten and left with a broken eye socket. He was allegedly forced to walk down a hallway nude afterwards and was then sexually assaulted by inmates, according to the report. 

The report states former Sheriff Lee Baca, who was head of the department at the time, dismissed allegations of deputy gangs and said the law enforcement officers "know how to take care of themselves." He was later convicted in 2017 of obstructing an FBI investigation into corruption in the jail system and sentenced to three years in prison before being released early.

Thomas Parker, a retired Assistant Special Agent in Charge for the FBI's Los Angeles Field Office, oversaw the federal investigation into the 1991 attack on Rodney King which led to riots in the city. In the ACLU report, he describes violence seen inside LA's jails at the time of the 2011 report as "astonishing," with routine beatings at the facilities "far more severe than the King beating." 

Parker said the issue with gangs of deputies inside the jails is "significantly more systemic" than that infamous incident and it's one that has spanned decades, the report says.

"Gang-like groups of deputies have been operating in the LASD at least since the 1980s, and perhaps since the early 1970s," the report reads, noting that Parker said these "deputy gangs" have continued to operate "seemingly with impunity, right under the eyes of all levels of the current management of LASD."