December 21, 2022 • 31 mins
The deputy gang story continues to unfold every day. Cerise is taking a much needed break this week from reporting. For now, a special bonus interview with Locatora Radio highlighting ongoing issues with the LA County Sheriffs department, what went into making this podcast, and how people can support victims.
A Tradition of Violence is hosted and executive produced by Cerise Castle. She's an award winning journalist who wrote the first ever history of deputy gangs for Knock LA, available at lasdgangs.com
For breaking news and updates on deputy gangs, follow @lasdgangs on social media.
To support Cerise’s reporting, and for exclusive bonus content, subscribe to the patreon.com/lasdgangs.
Follow Locatora Radio on Instagram and Twitter.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, it's series quick programming update for you. A Tradition
of Violence is a fourteen part audio investigation. We've done
ten episodes so far and we have four left. I'm
going to be taking this week off from reporting for
some very much needed R and R, but I didn't
want to leave you hanging, So this week you'll be
(00:20):
hearing an interview I did with Local Tora Radio. We
talked about my investigation into the l A County Sheriff's
Department's Deputy Gangs, the negative repercussions that I've faced from
my reporting, and what went into making the podcast A
Tradition of Violence. If you like what you here, please
make sure you subscribe to their podcast. Okay, here we
(00:40):
go look at radio into radio phonic novela, which is
just a very extra way of saying a podcast. I'm
theos f M and I am Mala. NEOs Local Radio
is your pretty must favorite podcast hosted by us Mala
and the Set where Too I g friends turned podcast partners,
(01:03):
breaking down pop culture, feminism, sexual wellness, and offering fresh
takes on sending topics through nuanced interviews with up and
coming Latin creatives known as Las Local Las Mammy Submit
and Bullshits next Door and Lasses. We've been podcasting independently
(01:24):
since and we're bringing our Radiola to the Mikeukura Network
to continue sharing stories from the Latinox community. Welcome to
Local Radio Season seven, Take us to your network. O
La La Locomotives, Welcome back to season seven of Local Radio.
(01:45):
I'm Theosa and I am Mala, and we are your hosts.
We have a super incredible, extra special guest here in
studio with us Today, Series Castle, and we're just gonna
do a real quick intro and then bring on series
and start talking. Series Castle wrote a fifteen part series
about the l A Sheriff Deputy Gangs. She is an
(02:06):
l A journalist and podcast host, and we're here to
talk all about a brand new podcast that's series is
hosting a Tradition of Violence, which is a show about
the deputy gangs that operate within the l A County
Sheriff's Department. So, Series, can you please say hello and
introduce yourself for our listeners. Hi, Uh, it's so great
to be here. Thank you so much for having me. Yes,
(02:28):
it's truly an honor series to be able to interview you.
I happened to be at USC a couple of weeks
ago when you were on a panel there, and so
it was really great to just hear some of your
story and some of the work that you've been doing.
And so I'm just super happy. And it just so
happened that Mama had actually emailed you a couple of
weeks before to schedule this, and so I love the
(02:50):
serendipitous nature of it. And so just to get us started,
you know, you have an incredible story with really what
got you started with is fifteen part series about the
l A Sheriff deputy gangs, and can you tell me
about the origin story and really what you were going through,
what season in your life you were in when you
(03:11):
decided to take on this endeavor of course. Yeah, So
the story of me getting interested in the topic of
deputy gangs really goes back to my childhood. I grew
up in the Los Angeles area, and ever since I
was a little kid, I heard about deputy gangs from
older children on the playground, my brother, teachers, my mom.
(03:35):
There was always this warning of, you know, watch out
for deputy sheriffs because they're likely in a gang. And
I think that's the case for a lot of black
and brown kids growing up in the l A Area,
um in certain neighborhoods. It's just sort of an accepted fact,
and it always was the sort of thing that intrigued
me and never really made sense because those same police
(03:59):
officers I was being warned about, we're coming into my
school and saying stay out of gangs. You know, gangs
are bad, and demonizing kids that you know, I had
grown up with, and we're affiliated with gangs sometimes members
of these gangs just by virtue of where they grew up,
and they were being painted and as these awful people,
(04:19):
and at the same time and being told by trusted people,
those same officers are actually in a gang themselves. That
never really made sense to me. And I could remember
going to the library when I was a kid and
trying to find out more about deputy gangs and trying
to find some sort of you know, reckoning to help
me make sense of this concepts because it just wasn't
(04:42):
computing and there was never anything in depth there. I
would find one off articles sort of very surface things,
but nothing really looking deeply into who these people were,
why they were doing what they were doing, where they
came from that sort of thing, and I'm appreciative to
the journal us that you know, wrote those articles that
(05:02):
you know, we're scratching the surface and like starting to
chip away at the deluge that came many many years later,
because that was instrumental in helping me build my interest
and my research later. So I kept coming back to
this question throughout my life, but there was never much
more there. So in I was here in Los Angeles
(05:25):
working for a local radio station, and I was covering
the protests that we're breaking out across the city in
response to the murder of George Floyd. And while I
was out working as a journalist, I was shot by
a police officer with a less lethal so called less
lethal munition. This happened while I was identifying myself as press.
(05:46):
I had a bunch of gear in my hands that
I have I captured on photo the officer actually turning
looking at me and firing at me. And the injuries
that resulted from that put me on ddressed for about
six months. I was in a cast. I had crutch
as I wasn't supposed to be out in the field
working and I was just supposed to be essentially on
(06:08):
my couch, and I didn't feel great about that, you know,
being a journalist of color in at that point, I
was in a mostly white organization and we were in
this historic moment of people at least wanting to have
a conversation about race and racism and how that impacts
everything day to day, and you know, journalistic institutions were
(06:29):
having these so called reckonings with racism. I just didn't
feel good about being on my couch in that moment.
So I was on my couch just sort of you know,
recovering and you know, processing the trauma of being shot
on the job. And I was watching the news as
a journalist does, and I saw that a young man,
(06:52):
an eighteen year old, had been killed in the Guardina
area working as a security guard. And very quickly it
came out that this young man on dress Guardado, he
was killed by two deputies that we're trying to get
into a deputy gang. And this was information that was
revealed by a deputy working with them. And here it
(07:12):
was again, this deputy gang issue in my face, and
I was just thinking to myself, wow, okay, like this
keeps coming up for me. I don't have anything on
my plan for the next six months. I'm supposed to
be sitting on my couch. Let me start researching this.
I can do that from my couch, So I did.
I started filing public records requests and I uncovered this
(07:36):
excel sheet that the county keeps of all of the
litigation related to deputy gangs. And once I recovered that,
that was basically my treasure map, and I used that
to find the information that became a tradition of violence
the initial fifteen part series. So there has been in
the past folks who have like filed lawsuits against the
(07:58):
Sheriff's Department for for getting related crimes against the public.
I would assume tons tons. So on average, the Sheriff's
Department kills about twenty four people a year, and a
lot of those shootings are done by deputies that one
have shot someone before, or to have some kind of
(08:19):
affiliation with a deputy gang, and that information usually comes
out in lawsuits because in lawsuits they have these things
called depositions where you go in and just like in court,
you swear to sell the truth, the whole truth, and
nothing but the truth, and if you don't, you will
face criminal consequences and in these lines of questionings. In
(08:39):
these depositions, they find out about these deputy gangs, and
the county takes note of that because the county is
representing these deputies in these depositions, and a lot of times,
you know, when it comes out in these depositions that
the deputies are part of the deputy gang and the
violence is potentially being committed as part of a deputy
(09:03):
gang ritual, the county wants to settle and that stored
and they take note of that. This is really fascinating
and impactful information. Thank you so much for sharing this
with our listeners. Yeah. I have a follow up question
series about the reporting process. So my question is like,
how did you balance the urgency of like wanting to
(09:26):
get this story out, wanting the public to know that
on a on a mass level, right that share of
deputy gangs exists, while also doing like really thorough reporting,
Like how did you balance that workload and wanting to
meet your internal deadlines? Not well, honestly, Um, I was
working around the clock and I put a lot of
(09:48):
pressure on myself to really get this out. It felt
very urgent. Um. This is a question that I had
had for at least you know, twenty years, I would say,
and I really wanted to at the moment that we
were in. So I was working like man. I would
get up at like seven o'clock in the morning and
not stop working until like eleven o'clock at night, just
(10:10):
in front of my computer all day, reading page after
page of lawsuit, deposition to transcripts, investigation files. And I
wasn't really managing it while I wasn't doing a lot
of self care. I mean, I was going to physical
therapy that I don't know if that really counts to
self care, but it wasn't healthy, definitely, And I feel
(10:33):
like I need to say that, and I've had to
put a lot of practice into being better about that
because that does start to wear on your reporting and
you will burn yourself out. And I definitely did burn
out towards the end of it. It's a lot of
really awful information that you're taking on looking into a
series like this, reading a series like this, listening to
(10:55):
a podcast discussing this content, and it's really important. I
in to talk about taking care of yourself when engaging
in that content too. That's just as important. You can't
really do an effective job whether that be reporting on it,
processing it, and going out and making change unless you're
also taking care of yourself. Yeah, there's I appreciate that
(11:18):
you bring that in taking care of yourself in the
making of and the researching of this series. How did
you continue to take care of yourself after you put
your findings out into the world, because you're reporting on
the Sheriff's gangs went like ultra mega viral global, like
(11:39):
had a huge digital footprint, Like people were putting like
signage up on the freeway overpasses and graffiti, and like
you're reporting had a global reach and like definitely got
noticed by the Sheriff's themselves, including the gang members. I
would assume, So taking care of yourself, you're in the
(12:00):
reporting process, But then what did that look like after
you put your work out into the world. A lot
of it was safety planning. Unfortunately, doing this kind of
work does come with a lot of negative feedback. I mean,
like you said, the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. Most
of the feedback I get is from people that have
had interaction with these deputy gangs, and I felt like
(12:22):
they were kind of, you know, being gas lit by
the world around them and seeing this reporting was really
reassuring to them, people that you know, have been living
in these communities and been facing this for generations. It
was really healing, I think in a lot of ways
to have this recognition UM in printed and published form UM.
(12:44):
But unfortunately there are people that don't like it, and
that's usually people that are engaging in this kind of behavior.
And unfortunately that has meant death threats via social media,
mysterious phone calls and text messages. That was more so
after the series That's us a pate it a lot,
and that was really scary. I was detained at a
(13:06):
press conference UM immediately following the publication of the series,
and that hasn't I've never experienced anything like that, and
that was really scary. The sheriff himself has made harassment,
harassment type comments about me UM. He had a whole
radio show where he called into question my credibility as
(13:29):
a journalist, which is really harmful UM for a reporter,
because all we have is our credibility and if that
is called into question, that could, you know, jeopardize my
ability to provide for myself and my family. His campaign
manager threatened to disclose my home address and on Twitter,
uh yeah, and that has meant, you know, having to
(13:51):
hire bodyguards when I go out and do certain assignments.
It's meant moving, It's meant I had to go into
hiding for a little bit following the publication of the series,
and it's changed my lifestyle completely. I have had to
alter what it is that I post on social media.
(14:12):
I don't really have. I try not to have a
front facing personal life because it has meant that those
people have been threatened as well. I've had friends of
mine that are threatened as a result of just you know,
being in a photo with me, which is really upsetting.
Thank you so much for sharing. I mean for us,
you know, we have received though you know, not at
(14:36):
the same level, but over the years, we have received
you know, death threats and rape threats, and because of
the feminist content that we put out there, and we
don't there a lot of it has been anonymous, so
we'll never know, but our assumption is most likely like
from our own community, from Latino men, and it really
has like altered the way we even show up online
even though we are very from facing. But and we
(14:57):
have been indied for so long up until this season. Um,
and so I'm wondering, like, I'm curious about the connections
or correlation you see between you know, having the independence
and freedom to do the type of stories that you
want to do as a freelancer, but then also lacking
maybe some of the institutional quote protection from like a
(15:20):
legacy media company, and so how have you been navigating
that type of the work that you do. Yeah, I
think that's a really important point, and that's something that
I try to talk about a lot when I'm in
these um legacy journalism spaces. I think that I receive
so much hate as it is because or I did
(15:41):
initially because I was a freelancer writing this for a
small independent outlet, whereas someone that would have written this
at a you know, in New York Times the Los
Angeles Times, if they don't feel as easy to get to,
if that makes sense. I wasn't you know, a reporter
that you're reading every day in the paper with you know,
(16:04):
this institution behind. So I was just, you know, as
a lot of them saw me, I was an activist
in quotations on a blog. I was bringing out someone
that could be touched, and they, I mean they tried
those press conferences. I mean they still, you know, play
(16:24):
around with me at press conferences today. I would The
last time I tried to attend a press conference, I
watched the captain of the media relations wave every reporter
in and point to me and say not threes. Um, yeah,
so's it's a really important thing. And I want to
give a shout out to Brittany Maheia at the l A. Times.
(16:48):
She refused to go in until I could go in
as well. And we don't often see that kind of
camaraderie and solidarity in the journalism community. I don't think
it's a coincidence that most of the other reporters, where
white men, were perfectly fine with walking me or walking
past me and letting me go in. But Brittany Mahia,
a Latino woman, saw me and said, no, I'm not
(17:09):
going to do that. I want her to come into.
Thank you for sharing that story. I was curious about
whether the l A. Times and other legacy media have
supported you and you're reporting, or expanded upon it, or
platformed you, or what that relationship has looked like. Um,
because obviously they see what you're doing and what you're
(17:31):
working on it. Initially, No, I mean, I was like
completely dismissed. I would say, I mean, there were some
journalists at the l A Times that you know, did
support me in their way, um, you know, sharing my articles.
Justin Ray, he's no longer at the Los Angeles Times,
but he featured my reporting in a newsletter. Emily Joven
(17:53):
at KL Matters also put my series in her newsletters.
So stuff like that. That's really important because those newsletters
are going out to you know, hundreds of thousands of
people every day. But unfortunately, I've also seen a lot
of frankly, what I feel is just blatant disrespect at
other legacy outlets. Rolling Stone the New Yorker both subsequently
(18:17):
wrote pieces about deputy gangs that to me appeared to
borrow heavily from my reporting, um, almost word for word.
Like sir, I could point to part you know, fifteen
of the series and say this is you know, essentially
the same story and not citing my reporting. Yeah. Absolutely,
(18:39):
thank you for sharing that. We have definitely experienced, like
our share of like you know, folks, minimizing the work
that we do. Even now that we're like I don't
even hire Caliber, you know, technically we're with I Heart Media.
There's still a level of you know, people not taking
our work seriously, and we see look at our radio
(19:01):
as an audio archive, which is for us able to
document the work that incredible journalists like yourself are doing,
which is why we were so excited to have you on.
And because you're working on your own podcast, you know
that serves as an archive as well for folks that
maybe reading a fifteen part series is not for them,
(19:22):
but hearing it is more up there, Alley, and so
I want to ask you specifically about the podcast A
Tradition of Violence and how that came to be. My
assumption is it's an extension of the fifteen part series,
but in your own word, I'd love to hear how
that came about and how you're formatting it to reach
people that our audio first. Yeah, that's a great question. Um,
(19:47):
So when I wrote the series, I it was conceptualized
as a written series, but I always knew that I
wanted to take it into other media formats to make
it accessible to other people. Like you said, um, it's
not every everyone isn't going to sit down and read
a fifteen part series. I think I printed it out
and it was over two hundred pages. That's that's not
(20:08):
for everyone, and you know, I wanted to make the
information as accessible as possible, and a podcast. I've worked in,
you know, written media. I've worked in audio journalism and
television journalism, so a podcast, to me felt like a
logical next step because a lot of the interviews that
I had done, we're on the phone. I had connections
with people I knew. I wanted to keep the reporting up,
(20:31):
and I pursued a podcast project with my Heart Media
and we're in the midst of putting it out now. Um.
It's going to be fourteen episodes, and like the series,
it dives into the history of the eighteen deputy gangs
that I uncovered in that initial series, but I've uncovered
two more in the years since doing that reporting, so
(20:54):
we're going to be talking about these two more deputy gangs. Unfortunately,
I've been able to connect several additional police killings to
these deputy gangs. UM and with that, I've also built
some more databases for the public. T is that I'm
really excited about. It really puts into perspective also, as
Angelina's we hear so much about the city being unsafe
(21:16):
and crime and violence, but when we think about who's
committing many, many acts of violence and committing crimes. To
be able to track crimes committed by the sheriffs by
deputy gangs, it really adds a new sort of layer
to our understanding of like violence in the city. I
appreciate your work for that as well, because I think
(21:38):
it's so easy to scapegoat the poor, the homeless people
of color when we have like a really big like
monster here that has not been addressed properly. And on
that note, in the podcast, you guys talk about this
sort of like Wild West, kind of like ident d
(22:00):
that the sheriffs have, and how that goes back all
the way even to the founding of California and like settlers,
like white men installing sheriffs and installing law enforcement as
they were founding towns and cities and settling and creating
their systems of government here. And I'm wondering if like
(22:23):
you can share with us UM, based on your reporting
and your research, how those demographics are the same or
how they have shifted over time, because I think anyone
in l A can look around and notice that a
lot of our sheriff's, a lot of our l APD
are actually people of color and a lot of them
are Latino. So what has that demographic shift look like
(22:43):
over time? And like what does it mean now? I
think there's so much at play here. I think it's
like capitalism definitely, how capitalism in the United States is
linked to white supremacy, and how our notions, sometimes some
people notions of success are linked to that white supremacist
(23:04):
capitalism hybrid that drives so much of American culture, and
how that is inherently linked to policing and how policing
has carried out in this country. Yeah, and we we
want to ask the question because in previous episodes, we
had Old Delia Rometo of c l O l A
(23:25):
on to talk about the leaked FED tapes and the
anti indigenous statements and anti black statements made by Neri
Martinez and Gil Cidio and other members. Right are former
members of l A City Council who were caught on
those tapes. And we because our audience is predominantly Latin
X and predominantly l A based, you know, we have
(23:48):
to ask these questions and talk about these things because
I think what we notice is this tendency towards like
folks in our community asking for representation and empowerment and
demanding it. But then once we get it and we're
in positions of power, how are we now using it?
And how are we using our power and our numbers?
(24:10):
And are organizing for good or for evil? And are
we acknowledging that these things are happening? I don't think
we are as a community, Like are we are we
addressing the fact that l A sheriff's gangs are probably
heavily Latino gangs and star getting other Latinos? Yes, And
so I'm curious too in your reporting, um, are you
(24:33):
seeing that conflict or are you seeing that education happening
or that pushback or that denial, Because what I'm also
thinking about is all these um sheriffs, like they have
families and they live in southern California and they send
their kids to school, and they're like parts of the community,
their neighbors, but they're also like agents of violence, right Yeah.
(24:56):
I mean, I think the people that read my work
for the most part, are very much in line and
aware of how this is all linked and how problematic
a lot of this stuff is. So I haven't had,
I haven't received, you know, negative feedback so much about
that specific thing, but it's something that I want to
(25:19):
make sure is present in the reporting and something that
is being discussed in the reporting. I can't underestimate or
like understate how important I think it is to talk
about this um Like in East l A. For example,
it's a mostly Latino station. They have a gang that
is called the Banditos. It's mostly or no, it is
(25:41):
you have to be Latino to be in the Bendettos.
And what do they do. They go out and brutalize
people living in East l A that are other Latinos.
And a lot of the time that people they're targeting,
like it's people that do not fit into this you know,
white supremacist like capitalist box like these are poor Latinos,
(26:01):
these are undocumented Latinos, these are Latinos that are indigenous. Yeah.
I just want to thank you for bringing that perspective
because for us, we're like constantly thinking of like how
can we push our community to have these conversations with us,
And so for you to have, you know, so much
is so much of it is like show me the data, right,
(26:21):
and it's like, well, here's the reporting, you know, here's
it's there. I think it was in maybe yea when
you know the sheriff called supervisor Ila La Malini, right,
And so it's like this repeated behaved pattern of behavior
of you know, verbal aggression, violence that has gone and
(26:44):
checked and as we're recording, you know, the election has
not been called, but it's he will potentially lose his seat,
and it's looking like Sheriff Fanueva did not win this election. Right. Yeah,
there's obviously a lot a lot of different factors. But
you know, as an Angelino and as a journalist and
someone very online, I can see the link between the
(27:07):
reporting that you've done and this election cycle. And so
maybe like can you speak to that. Do you feel like, uh,
your reporting has made an impact on the sheriff's election?
I think because we think the answer is yes, yeah,
I don't want to maybe you don't want to say that,
(27:27):
as we'll say, but we feel people people are waking
up to it because either either you know and you
don't want to admit it, or you're you didn't even
know that they existed and now you're your second guessing.
And we've had like a racial recogning you know, countrywide.
And then there's also this reporting that has happened. So
(27:47):
you may not want to say, but we can see
the link. Thank you for saying that. I think I
think I would come off as kind of like naive
maybe if I said no. But I also want to
say that my reporting is very much a vehicle of
voices that have been talking about this issue for years
and years, oftentimes longer than I've been alive. I very
(28:12):
much see the reporting that I'm doing as facilitating, um,
you know, platform and giving space to people that have
been living in this nightmare for the past fifty years
and for the first time had a chance to really
share and talk about the consequences of having, you know,
(28:34):
living in you know, a police day essentially and the
traumas that come with that. UM yes, so yeah, I
do think my reporting made a difference, but it was done,
you know, in line with a lot of great work
that has been going on for a long time. Thank
you so much a series for sharing your story, your
(28:55):
your journalism, and your work with our listeners and for
those who maybe are just finding out about all of this.
Um you never know, like who the news is not reaching? Um,
where can folks follow you? Where can folks tune in? Read?
The work and learn more about l A Deputy Sheriff's
(29:16):
Gangs and the tradition of violence. Yeah, you can head
to l A s D Gangs dot com and on
that website you can check out my original fifteen part series.
You'll get links to where to listen to my podcast,
A Tradition of Violence, and you'll also be able to
look at those databases that I was telling you about.
(29:38):
If you want to get to know the Shriff's deputies
in your neighborhood and the violence that they've committed against
your neighbors. Um. If you want to get breaking news
updates about what is happening with the deputy gangs, you
can follow at l A s D Gangs on all
social media. I'm also giving updates. I'm on Twitter at
Series Castle. I'm on Instagram. Um at your majesty see yeah,
(30:02):
those are my handles. Fabulous. Once again, Three's Castle. Thank
you for joining us, and thank you all for tuning in.
This has been another episode of look At Our Radio.
Look At That Our Radio is a production of Look
At That Our Productions in partnership with I Hearts Michael
podcast Network. For more podcasts, listen to the I Heart
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
(30:25):
favorite shows. Uh be fos look at radio Radio Phonic
novella posted by Mala Munyas and the STA then take
(31:29):
us to your network. Thanks so much for listening to
this special episode. We'll be back next week.
Hey, it's series quick programming update for you. A Tradition
of Violence is a fourteen part audio investigation. We've done
ten episodes so far and we have four left. I'm
going to be taking this week off from reporting for
some very much needed R and R, but I didn't
want to leave you hanging, So this week you'll be
(00:20):
hearing an interview I did with Local Tora Radio. We
talked about my investigation into the l A County Sheriff's
Department's Deputy Gangs, the negative repercussions that I've faced from
my reporting, and what went into making the podcast A
Tradition of Violence. If you like what you here, please
make sure you subscribe to their podcast. Okay, here we
(00:40):
go look at radio into radio phonic novela, which is
just a very extra way of saying a podcast. I'm
theos f M and I am Mala. NEOs Local Radio
is your pretty must favorite podcast hosted by us Mala
and the Set where Too I g friends turned podcast partners,
(01:03):
breaking down pop culture, feminism, sexual wellness, and offering fresh
takes on sending topics through nuanced interviews with up and
coming Latin creatives known as Las Local Las Mammy Submit
and Bullshits next Door and Lasses. We've been podcasting independently
(01:24):
since and we're bringing our Radiola to the Mikeukura Network
to continue sharing stories from the Latinox community. Welcome to
Local Radio Season seven, Take us to your network. O
La La Locomotives, Welcome back to season seven of Local Radio.
(01:45):
I'm Theosa and I am Mala, and we are your hosts.
We have a super incredible, extra special guest here in
studio with us Today, Series Castle, and we're just gonna
do a real quick intro and then bring on series
and start talking. Series Castle wrote a fifteen part series
about the l A Sheriff Deputy Gangs. She is an
(02:06):
l A journalist and podcast host, and we're here to
talk all about a brand new podcast that's series is
hosting a Tradition of Violence, which is a show about
the deputy gangs that operate within the l A County
Sheriff's Department. So, Series, can you please say hello and
introduce yourself for our listeners. Hi, Uh, it's so great
to be here. Thank you so much for having me. Yes,
(02:28):
it's truly an honor series to be able to interview you.
I happened to be at USC a couple of weeks
ago when you were on a panel there, and so
it was really great to just hear some of your
story and some of the work that you've been doing.
And so I'm just super happy. And it just so
happened that Mama had actually emailed you a couple of
weeks before to schedule this, and so I love the
(02:50):
serendipitous nature of it. And so just to get us started,
you know, you have an incredible story with really what
got you started with is fifteen part series about the
l A Sheriff deputy gangs, and can you tell me
about the origin story and really what you were going through,
what season in your life you were in when you
(03:11):
decided to take on this endeavor of course. Yeah, So
the story of me getting interested in the topic of
deputy gangs really goes back to my childhood. I grew
up in the Los Angeles area, and ever since I
was a little kid, I heard about deputy gangs from
older children on the playground, my brother, teachers, my mom.
(03:35):
There was always this warning of, you know, watch out
for deputy sheriffs because they're likely in a gang. And
I think that's the case for a lot of black
and brown kids growing up in the l A Area,
um in certain neighborhoods. It's just sort of an accepted fact,
and it always was the sort of thing that intrigued
me and never really made sense because those same police
(03:59):
officers I was being warned about, we're coming into my
school and saying stay out of gangs. You know, gangs
are bad, and demonizing kids that you know, I had
grown up with, and we're affiliated with gangs sometimes members
of these gangs just by virtue of where they grew up,
and they were being painted and as these awful people,
(04:19):
and at the same time and being told by trusted people,
those same officers are actually in a gang themselves. That
never really made sense to me. And I could remember
going to the library when I was a kid and
trying to find out more about deputy gangs and trying
to find some sort of you know, reckoning to help
me make sense of this concepts because it just wasn't
(04:42):
computing and there was never anything in depth there. I
would find one off articles sort of very surface things,
but nothing really looking deeply into who these people were,
why they were doing what they were doing, where they
came from that sort of thing, and I'm appreciative to
the journal us that you know, wrote those articles that
(05:02):
you know, we're scratching the surface and like starting to
chip away at the deluge that came many many years later,
because that was instrumental in helping me build my interest
and my research later. So I kept coming back to
this question throughout my life, but there was never much
more there. So in I was here in Los Angeles
(05:25):
working for a local radio station, and I was covering
the protests that we're breaking out across the city in
response to the murder of George Floyd. And while I
was out working as a journalist, I was shot by
a police officer with a less lethal so called less
lethal munition. This happened while I was identifying myself as press.
(05:46):
I had a bunch of gear in my hands that
I have I captured on photo the officer actually turning
looking at me and firing at me. And the injuries
that resulted from that put me on ddressed for about
six months. I was in a cast. I had crutch
as I wasn't supposed to be out in the field
working and I was just supposed to be essentially on
(06:08):
my couch, and I didn't feel great about that, you know,
being a journalist of color in at that point, I
was in a mostly white organization and we were in
this historic moment of people at least wanting to have
a conversation about race and racism and how that impacts
everything day to day, and you know, journalistic institutions were
(06:29):
having these so called reckonings with racism. I just didn't
feel good about being on my couch in that moment.
So I was on my couch just sort of you know,
recovering and you know, processing the trauma of being shot
on the job. And I was watching the news as
a journalist does, and I saw that a young man,
(06:52):
an eighteen year old, had been killed in the Guardina
area working as a security guard. And very quickly it
came out that this young man on dress Guardado, he
was killed by two deputies that we're trying to get
into a deputy gang. And this was information that was
revealed by a deputy working with them. And here it
(07:12):
was again, this deputy gang issue in my face, and
I was just thinking to myself, wow, okay, like this
keeps coming up for me. I don't have anything on
my plan for the next six months. I'm supposed to
be sitting on my couch. Let me start researching this.
I can do that from my couch, So I did.
I started filing public records requests and I uncovered this
(07:36):
excel sheet that the county keeps of all of the
litigation related to deputy gangs. And once I recovered that,
that was basically my treasure map, and I used that
to find the information that became a tradition of violence
the initial fifteen part series. So there has been in
the past folks who have like filed lawsuits against the
(07:58):
Sheriff's Department for for getting related crimes against the public.
I would assume tons tons. So on average, the Sheriff's
Department kills about twenty four people a year, and a
lot of those shootings are done by deputies that one
have shot someone before, or to have some kind of
(08:19):
affiliation with a deputy gang, and that information usually comes
out in lawsuits because in lawsuits they have these things
called depositions where you go in and just like in court,
you swear to sell the truth, the whole truth, and
nothing but the truth, and if you don't, you will
face criminal consequences and in these lines of questionings. In
(08:39):
these depositions, they find out about these deputy gangs, and
the county takes note of that because the county is
representing these deputies in these depositions, and a lot of times,
you know, when it comes out in these depositions that
the deputies are part of the deputy gang and the
violence is potentially being committed as part of a deputy
(09:03):
gang ritual, the county wants to settle and that stored
and they take note of that. This is really fascinating
and impactful information. Thank you so much for sharing this
with our listeners. Yeah. I have a follow up question
series about the reporting process. So my question is like,
how did you balance the urgency of like wanting to
(09:26):
get this story out, wanting the public to know that
on a on a mass level, right that share of
deputy gangs exists, while also doing like really thorough reporting,
Like how did you balance that workload and wanting to
meet your internal deadlines? Not well, honestly, Um, I was
working around the clock and I put a lot of
(09:48):
pressure on myself to really get this out. It felt
very urgent. Um. This is a question that I had
had for at least you know, twenty years, I would say,
and I really wanted to at the moment that we
were in. So I was working like man. I would
get up at like seven o'clock in the morning and
not stop working until like eleven o'clock at night, just
(10:10):
in front of my computer all day, reading page after
page of lawsuit, deposition to transcripts, investigation files. And I
wasn't really managing it while I wasn't doing a lot
of self care. I mean, I was going to physical
therapy that I don't know if that really counts to
self care, but it wasn't healthy, definitely, And I feel
(10:33):
like I need to say that, and I've had to
put a lot of practice into being better about that
because that does start to wear on your reporting and
you will burn yourself out. And I definitely did burn
out towards the end of it. It's a lot of
really awful information that you're taking on looking into a
series like this, reading a series like this, listening to
(10:55):
a podcast discussing this content, and it's really important. I
in to talk about taking care of yourself when engaging
in that content too. That's just as important. You can't
really do an effective job whether that be reporting on it,
processing it, and going out and making change unless you're
also taking care of yourself. Yeah, there's I appreciate that
(11:18):
you bring that in taking care of yourself in the
making of and the researching of this series. How did
you continue to take care of yourself after you put
your findings out into the world, because you're reporting on
the Sheriff's gangs went like ultra mega viral global, like
(11:39):
had a huge digital footprint, Like people were putting like
signage up on the freeway overpasses and graffiti, and like
you're reporting had a global reach and like definitely got
noticed by the Sheriff's themselves, including the gang members. I
would assume, So taking care of yourself, you're in the
(12:00):
reporting process, But then what did that look like after
you put your work out into the world. A lot
of it was safety planning. Unfortunately, doing this kind of
work does come with a lot of negative feedback. I mean,
like you said, the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. Most
of the feedback I get is from people that have
had interaction with these deputy gangs, and I felt like
(12:22):
they were kind of, you know, being gas lit by
the world around them and seeing this reporting was really
reassuring to them, people that you know, have been living
in these communities and been facing this for generations. It
was really healing, I think in a lot of ways
to have this recognition UM in printed and published form UM.
(12:44):
But unfortunately there are people that don't like it, and
that's usually people that are engaging in this kind of behavior.
And unfortunately that has meant death threats via social media,
mysterious phone calls and text messages. That was more so
after the series That's us a pate it a lot,
and that was really scary. I was detained at a
(13:06):
press conference UM immediately following the publication of the series,
and that hasn't I've never experienced anything like that, and
that was really scary. The sheriff himself has made harassment,
harassment type comments about me UM. He had a whole
radio show where he called into question my credibility as
(13:29):
a journalist, which is really harmful UM for a reporter,
because all we have is our credibility and if that
is called into question, that could, you know, jeopardize my
ability to provide for myself and my family. His campaign
manager threatened to disclose my home address and on Twitter,
uh yeah, and that has meant, you know, having to
(13:51):
hire bodyguards when I go out and do certain assignments.
It's meant moving, It's meant I had to go into
hiding for a little bit following the publication of the series,
and it's changed my lifestyle completely. I have had to
alter what it is that I post on social media.
(14:12):
I don't really have. I try not to have a
front facing personal life because it has meant that those
people have been threatened as well. I've had friends of
mine that are threatened as a result of just you know,
being in a photo with me, which is really upsetting.
Thank you so much for sharing. I mean for us,
you know, we have received though you know, not at
(14:36):
the same level, but over the years, we have received
you know, death threats and rape threats, and because of
the feminist content that we put out there, and we
don't there a lot of it has been anonymous, so
we'll never know, but our assumption is most likely like
from our own community, from Latino men, and it really
has like altered the way we even show up online
even though we are very from facing. But and we
(14:57):
have been indied for so long up until this season. Um,
and so I'm wondering, like, I'm curious about the connections
or correlation you see between you know, having the independence
and freedom to do the type of stories that you
want to do as a freelancer, but then also lacking
maybe some of the institutional quote protection from like a
(15:20):
legacy media company, and so how have you been navigating
that type of the work that you do. Yeah, I
think that's a really important point, and that's something that
I try to talk about a lot when I'm in
these um legacy journalism spaces. I think that I receive
so much hate as it is because or I did
(15:41):
initially because I was a freelancer writing this for a
small independent outlet, whereas someone that would have written this
at a you know, in New York Times the Los
Angeles Times, if they don't feel as easy to get to,
if that makes sense. I wasn't you know, a reporter
that you're reading every day in the paper with you know,
(16:04):
this institution behind. So I was just, you know, as
a lot of them saw me, I was an activist
in quotations on a blog. I was bringing out someone
that could be touched, and they, I mean they tried
those press conferences. I mean they still, you know, play
(16:24):
around with me at press conferences today. I would The
last time I tried to attend a press conference, I
watched the captain of the media relations wave every reporter
in and point to me and say not threes. Um, yeah,
so's it's a really important thing. And I want to
give a shout out to Brittany Maheia at the l A. Times.
(16:48):
She refused to go in until I could go in
as well. And we don't often see that kind of
camaraderie and solidarity in the journalism community. I don't think
it's a coincidence that most of the other reporters, where
white men, were perfectly fine with walking me or walking
past me and letting me go in. But Brittany Mahia,
a Latino woman, saw me and said, no, I'm not
(17:09):
going to do that. I want her to come into.
Thank you for sharing that story. I was curious about
whether the l A. Times and other legacy media have
supported you and you're reporting, or expanded upon it, or
platformed you, or what that relationship has looked like. Um,
because obviously they see what you're doing and what you're
(17:31):
working on it. Initially, No, I mean, I was like
completely dismissed. I would say, I mean, there were some
journalists at the l A Times that you know, did
support me in their way, um, you know, sharing my articles.
Justin Ray, he's no longer at the Los Angeles Times,
but he featured my reporting in a newsletter. Emily Joven
(17:53):
at KL Matters also put my series in her newsletters.
So stuff like that. That's really important because those newsletters
are going out to you know, hundreds of thousands of
people every day. But unfortunately, I've also seen a lot
of frankly, what I feel is just blatant disrespect at
other legacy outlets. Rolling Stone the New Yorker both subsequently
(18:17):
wrote pieces about deputy gangs that to me appeared to
borrow heavily from my reporting, um, almost word for word.
Like sir, I could point to part you know, fifteen
of the series and say this is you know, essentially
the same story and not citing my reporting. Yeah. Absolutely,
(18:39):
thank you for sharing that. We have definitely experienced, like
our share of like you know, folks, minimizing the work
that we do. Even now that we're like I don't
even hire Caliber, you know, technically we're with I Heart Media.
There's still a level of you know, people not taking
our work seriously, and we see look at our radio
(19:01):
as an audio archive, which is for us able to
document the work that incredible journalists like yourself are doing,
which is why we were so excited to have you on.
And because you're working on your own podcast, you know
that serves as an archive as well for folks that
maybe reading a fifteen part series is not for them,
(19:22):
but hearing it is more up there, Alley, and so
I want to ask you specifically about the podcast A
Tradition of Violence and how that came to be. My
assumption is it's an extension of the fifteen part series,
but in your own word, I'd love to hear how
that came about and how you're formatting it to reach
people that our audio first. Yeah, that's a great question. Um,
(19:47):
So when I wrote the series, I it was conceptualized
as a written series, but I always knew that I
wanted to take it into other media formats to make
it accessible to other people. Like you said, um, it's
not every everyone isn't going to sit down and read
a fifteen part series. I think I printed it out
and it was over two hundred pages. That's that's not
(20:08):
for everyone, and you know, I wanted to make the
information as accessible as possible, and a podcast. I've worked in,
you know, written media. I've worked in audio journalism and
television journalism, so a podcast, to me felt like a
logical next step because a lot of the interviews that
I had done, we're on the phone. I had connections
with people I knew. I wanted to keep the reporting up,
(20:31):
and I pursued a podcast project with my Heart Media
and we're in the midst of putting it out now. Um.
It's going to be fourteen episodes, and like the series,
it dives into the history of the eighteen deputy gangs
that I uncovered in that initial series, but I've uncovered
two more in the years since doing that reporting, so
(20:54):
we're going to be talking about these two more deputy gangs. Unfortunately,
I've been able to connect several additional police killings to
these deputy gangs. UM and with that, I've also built
some more databases for the public. T is that I'm
really excited about. It really puts into perspective also, as
Angelina's we hear so much about the city being unsafe
(21:16):
and crime and violence, but when we think about who's
committing many, many acts of violence and committing crimes. To
be able to track crimes committed by the sheriffs by
deputy gangs, it really adds a new sort of layer
to our understanding of like violence in the city. I
appreciate your work for that as well, because I think
(21:38):
it's so easy to scapegoat the poor, the homeless people
of color when we have like a really big like
monster here that has not been addressed properly. And on
that note, in the podcast, you guys talk about this
sort of like Wild West, kind of like ident d
(22:00):
that the sheriffs have, and how that goes back all
the way even to the founding of California and like settlers,
like white men installing sheriffs and installing law enforcement as
they were founding towns and cities and settling and creating
their systems of government here. And I'm wondering if like
(22:23):
you can share with us UM, based on your reporting
and your research, how those demographics are the same or
how they have shifted over time, because I think anyone
in l A can look around and notice that a
lot of our sheriff's, a lot of our l APD
are actually people of color and a lot of them
are Latino. So what has that demographic shift look like
(22:43):
over time? And like what does it mean now? I
think there's so much at play here. I think it's
like capitalism definitely, how capitalism in the United States is
linked to white supremacy, and how our notions, sometimes some
people notions of success are linked to that white supremacist
(23:04):
capitalism hybrid that drives so much of American culture, and
how that is inherently linked to policing and how policing
has carried out in this country. Yeah, and we we
want to ask the question because in previous episodes, we
had Old Delia Rometo of c l O l A
(23:25):
on to talk about the leaked FED tapes and the
anti indigenous statements and anti black statements made by Neri
Martinez and Gil Cidio and other members. Right are former
members of l A City Council who were caught on
those tapes. And we because our audience is predominantly Latin
X and predominantly l A based, you know, we have
(23:48):
to ask these questions and talk about these things because
I think what we notice is this tendency towards like
folks in our community asking for representation and empowerment and
demanding it. But then once we get it and we're
in positions of power, how are we now using it?
And how are we using our power and our numbers?
(24:10):
And are organizing for good or for evil? And are
we acknowledging that these things are happening? I don't think
we are as a community, Like are we are we
addressing the fact that l A sheriff's gangs are probably
heavily Latino gangs and star getting other Latinos? Yes, And
so I'm curious too in your reporting, um, are you
(24:33):
seeing that conflict or are you seeing that education happening
or that pushback or that denial, Because what I'm also
thinking about is all these um sheriffs, like they have
families and they live in southern California and they send
their kids to school, and they're like parts of the community,
their neighbors, but they're also like agents of violence, right Yeah.
(24:56):
I mean, I think the people that read my work
for the most part, are very much in line and
aware of how this is all linked and how problematic
a lot of this stuff is. So I haven't had,
I haven't received, you know, negative feedback so much about
that specific thing, but it's something that I want to
(25:19):
make sure is present in the reporting and something that
is being discussed in the reporting. I can't underestimate or
like understate how important I think it is to talk
about this um Like in East l A. For example,
it's a mostly Latino station. They have a gang that
is called the Banditos. It's mostly or no, it is
(25:41):
you have to be Latino to be in the Bendettos.
And what do they do. They go out and brutalize
people living in East l A that are other Latinos.
And a lot of the time that people they're targeting,
like it's people that do not fit into this you know,
white supremacist like capitalist box like these are poor Latinos,
(26:01):
these are undocumented Latinos, these are Latinos that are indigenous. Yeah.
I just want to thank you for bringing that perspective
because for us, we're like constantly thinking of like how
can we push our community to have these conversations with us,
And so for you to have, you know, so much
is so much of it is like show me the data, right,
(26:21):
and it's like, well, here's the reporting, you know, here's
it's there. I think it was in maybe yea when
you know the sheriff called supervisor Ila La Malini, right,
And so it's like this repeated behaved pattern of behavior
of you know, verbal aggression, violence that has gone and
(26:44):
checked and as we're recording, you know, the election has
not been called, but it's he will potentially lose his seat,
and it's looking like Sheriff Fanueva did not win this election. Right. Yeah,
there's obviously a lot a lot of different factors. But
you know, as an Angelino and as a journalist and
someone very online, I can see the link between the
(27:07):
reporting that you've done and this election cycle. And so
maybe like can you speak to that. Do you feel like, uh,
your reporting has made an impact on the sheriff's election?
I think because we think the answer is yes, yeah,
I don't want to maybe you don't want to say that,
(27:27):
as we'll say, but we feel people people are waking
up to it because either either you know and you
don't want to admit it, or you're you didn't even
know that they existed and now you're your second guessing.
And we've had like a racial recogning you know, countrywide.
And then there's also this reporting that has happened. So
(27:47):
you may not want to say, but we can see
the link. Thank you for saying that. I think I
think I would come off as kind of like naive
maybe if I said no. But I also want to
say that my reporting is very much a vehicle of
voices that have been talking about this issue for years
and years, oftentimes longer than I've been alive. I very
(28:12):
much see the reporting that I'm doing as facilitating, um,
you know, platform and giving space to people that have
been living in this nightmare for the past fifty years
and for the first time had a chance to really
share and talk about the consequences of having, you know,
(28:34):
living in you know, a police day essentially and the
traumas that come with that. UM yes, so yeah, I
do think my reporting made a difference, but it was done,
you know, in line with a lot of great work
that has been going on for a long time. Thank
you so much a series for sharing your story, your
(28:55):
your journalism, and your work with our listeners and for
those who maybe are just finding out about all of this.
Um you never know, like who the news is not reaching? Um,
where can folks follow you? Where can folks tune in? Read?
The work and learn more about l A Deputy Sheriff's
(29:16):
Gangs and the tradition of violence. Yeah, you can head
to l A s D Gangs dot com and on
that website you can check out my original fifteen part series.
You'll get links to where to listen to my podcast,
A Tradition of Violence, and you'll also be able to
look at those databases that I was telling you about.
(29:38):
If you want to get to know the Shriff's deputies
in your neighborhood and the violence that they've committed against
your neighbors. Um. If you want to get breaking news
updates about what is happening with the deputy gangs, you
can follow at l A s D Gangs on all
social media. I'm also giving updates. I'm on Twitter at
Series Castle. I'm on Instagram. Um at your majesty see yeah,
(30:02):
those are my handles. Fabulous. Once again, Three's Castle. Thank
you for joining us, and thank you all for tuning in.
This has been another episode of look At Our Radio.
Look At That Our Radio is a production of Look
At That Our Productions in partnership with I Hearts Michael
podcast Network. For more podcasts, listen to the I Heart
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
(30:25):
favorite shows. Uh be fos look at radio Radio Phonic
novella posted by Mala Munyas and the STA then take
(31:29):
us to your network. Thanks so much for listening to
this special episode. We'll be back next week.
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