from the evil-within dept
For years, the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department has had a gang problem. And for just as many years, sheriff after elected sheriff have refused to address this problem. It’s not simply a matter of taking a hands-off approach to discipline. It’s been a matter of flat-out denial from sheriffs that deputies are forming gangs seemingly solely for the purpose of abusing rights of Los Angeles County residents.
The latest sheriff to pretend this problem simply didn’t exist was Alex Villanueva. He pitched himself as a reformer to get elected and then spent his years in office intimidating critics, threatening lawsuits, and otherwise refusing to acknowledge the fact deputies were forming cliques and using this strength-in-numbers solidarity to both inflict violence on citizens and intimidate supervisors who might have wished to discipline them.
Another self-proclaimed reformer was elected last year to the office of sheriff. Robert Luna, the former chief of the Long Beach Police Department took Villanueva’s place. Luna claims he wants to rid the department of its gang problem. So far, he really hasn’t taken many steps to do that, but he has at least reopened the doors to the LASD’s Inspector General, who is now ordering deputies to answer questions about their gang involvement.
Nearly three dozen deputies have been ordered to come in for questioning, show their tattoos and give up the names of any other deputies similarly sporting ink connecting them to two of the Los Angeles County Sheriff Department’s most notorious deputy gangs.
The demand came Friday in a letter sent by county Inspector General Max Huntsman to 35 deputies suspected of being members of either the Executioners, which operates out of the Compton station, or the Banditos, which operates out of the East L.A. station.
The names of the suspected gang members have not been released to the public, but Huntsman says he has identified at least 41 potential gang members. If this investigation actually manages to force deputies to answer questions they’d rather not answer, the total number of suspected gang members will increase.
This move by the IG has prompted some defensive maneuvering by the LASD’s union, the Association for Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs (ALADS). It has issued its own letter (and department-wide text message) telling deputies to tell the union if they’ve received a letter from the IG. And it has claimed, without supporting evidence, that demanding information about deputy gangs violates “fundamental constitutional rights.”
Of course, forming cliques and engaging in team misconduct are not rights. And the right to association is limited when it involves public employees, who may have the right to buddy up to whoever they want, but not the right to form gangs specifically forbidden by both department policy and state law.
The Inspector General realizes there are constitutional rights at play. His letter [PDF] specifically mentions the Fifth Amendment, encouraging deputies to utilize this one if they feel their answers might subject them to criminal charges. But even if the answers don’t result in prosecution, they could result in suspensions or firings, which is why the sheriff’s union is up in arms.
To his credit, Sheriff Luna has at least acknowledged these deputy gangs exist. And he formed the Office for Constitutional Policing, which is tasked with dismantling deputy gangs. The county’s Civilian Oversight Board recently released its own findings on deputy gangs, providing more evidence of their existence and a roadmap for their elimination. But that has failed to push the Department closer to Luna’s stated goal — something Luna can only blame himself for.
Unlike his predecessor, Luna has acknowledged the existence of deputy gangs and publicly said he wants to end them. However, he has not yet formally accepted the report’s recommendations.
Well, the first step is admitting you have a problem. That’s something his previous two predecessors couldn’t even do. The IG’s investigation — if the office actually manages to break the combined codes of silence covering both the LASD and the gangs it houses — should hopefully push Sheriff Luna past acceptance and into action. Until then, it’s still the same old LASD. The only thing that will have changed is the picture on the top of the org chart.
Filed Under: alex villanueva, gangs, lasd, lasd gangs, robert luna
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