January 4, 2023 • 40 mins
LA is home to the entertainment industry. Police agencies work closely with writers, producers and executives to create programming that puts them in the best light. These television shows dominate network programming, and influence the beliefs of their viewers.
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
Music by Yelohill and Steelz.
For breaking news and updates on deputy gangs, follow @lasdgangs on social media.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Morning. This podcast contains explicit language and details acts of violence.
Listener discretion is advised. When you put on a television show,
there's a high chance that it's about the cops. Television
shows about the police have been some of the most
popular since the nineteen fifties, when TVs were first introduced
to American households. Police officers and departments collaborate with production
(00:24):
teams to give them an up close look at things
from their point of view. People hurt by the police
are rarely given the same opportunity. Over seventy years of
crime dramas has had an impact on how we view
the institution of policing and how we look at each other.
And some of these shows have highlighted things like deputy
gangs and given them a positive spin. This is a
(00:51):
tradition of violence. A history of deputy gangs inside the
Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. Over the years, police dramas
have mirrored the fears and ideals of the people writing
the stories, which are overwhelmingly white men. Columnists Alyssa Rosenberg
(01:13):
wrote about this extensively for The Washington Post in in
the nineteen fifties. These programs encouraged the public to put
their faith in so called law and order style governance.
In the nineteen sixties, police procedurals, also called crime dramas,
inflated fear about increasing rates of crime. In the nineteen eighties,
(01:35):
Bruce Willis saved a skyscraper full of office workers from
a radical East German, and Sean Penn battled the crips
and the bloods. A century ago, the International Association of
Chiefs of Police adopted a resolution condemning the movie business because,
according to the group's president quote, the police are sometimes
(01:55):
made to appear ridiculous. The Supreme Court ruled in nineteen
five teen that movies were not protected by the First Amendment.
It took thirty years to reverse that decision. But as
the industry grew bigger, richer, and more powerful, the relationship
with police began to soften. Studios needed the cops to
(02:15):
cover up the antics of its stars, like the rape
and manslaughter trials of Roscoe Fatty Arbuckle, a silent film comedian,
so it was in their best interest to get along.
This meant bringing on police to be technical advisors on productions,
to give their opinions about how things were written and performed.
One of those advisors would inspire a show that changed
(02:38):
the course of television history. Dragnet premiered on TV in
nineteen fifty one. The show takes its name from the
police system of using coordination to apprehend suspects. It was
created by actor Jack Webb, who was inspired by the
tales of a Los Angeles Police Department detective who was
advising on a movie Web acted in. Dragnet started as
(03:01):
a radio program, but as a television show, it created
the procedural formula that is still followed by shows today.
Web stars as police detective Sergeant Joe Friday. Web had
a close relationship with then l a p D Chief
William Parker, an outspoken racist who introduced segregationist policies within
(03:21):
the department. Every single script was approved by the l
a p D. Anything they didn't like was cut out
of the story. Inconvenient realities like parker banning the hiring
of black officers weren't included either. In exchange, Dragnet got
to use real police officers, vehicles, and equipment during production
(03:42):
free of charge. That type of collaboration became a model
for other shows that followed. In Highway Patrol was created
after a commissioner demanded that his own public relations division
quote get us a show like Dragnet. FBI director j
Edgar Hoover had full script approval on ABC's The FBI,
(04:04):
which ran for ten years starting in nineteen Hoover also
politically vetted the cast. Today, it's expected for police shows
to have cops working as consultants, writers, and actors go
on right along with local police. For the past ten years,
about twenty of all scripted broadcast TV shows have been
(04:25):
about police, according to analysis from The Hollywood Reporter. Within
scripted dramas, cops shows account for half of all broadcast programming.
Forty percent of the top watch television shows were about
the police. Studies have shown that all of this police
programming has an effect on your perceptions. So I am
(04:48):
Kelly Rosel. I am the chief marketing and storytelling officer
with Color of Change. Our mission is really to make
it a more human and less hastile world for black
people in America, really working to advance racial equity and
hold corporations in the entertainment industry accountable. Why are television
shows about the police so popular? I think it really
(05:11):
comes down to what sells. I think we as viewers
of content, we really invest a lot mentally and emotionally
in this content, and there is this want for information,
and I think that people watch these shows to learn
(05:32):
and and also entertain themselves. But what ultimately happens is
it begins to inform their beliefs about the world, and
instead of it being this escape, it really becomes this
thing that informs their view on life. I would define
copaganda as this misinformation and misleading that media creates around
(05:58):
the criminal justice system. Who are the people that are
writing these shows? We know the key players like Dick
Wolfe in Law and Order, but overall we're seeing that
the people writing the shows are not the people with
the real, authentic stories and the lived experiences. In Color
of Change and the usc On and Burg, Norman Lear
(06:20):
Center's Media Impact Project published a landmark report entitled Normalizing Injustice.
It found that cops centered television shows are inaccurate and
give viewers a warped view of the criminal justice system.
I helped work on the second subsequent report, which is
due out soon. In our first report, one percent of
showrunners in TV. That was twenty one out of the
(06:43):
six shows that we analyzed at least eight one percent
of writers were white, with only nine percent being black,
and then across the genre, twenty of the twenty six
series had either no black writers or just one black writer.
And then when it comes to women, only thirty seven
percent of writers across the genre were women and only
(07:03):
eleven percent were women of color. We've seen a lot
of stories from young black creators and producers and writers
that have been on sets on social media speak out
about their experiences of mistreatment or not having an actual voice.
And until these sets are set up with decision makers
(07:26):
that are not necessarily all white, there's always going to
be the struggle of getting black voices heard and having
that level of respect in these environments. We know historically
within corporate America there is a lot of nepotism. People
are hiring the people that they know. There's a lack
(07:47):
of data being captured. How can you know who you're
not hiring if you're not measuring anything. Ultimately, they just
need to be intentional, and we have not seen that.
So decision makers are hiring the people that they want,
that they know that are a part of this very
small pool of people within the industry. Within that small pool.
(08:09):
Experiences with the police are very limited. It really ties
back to the pr machine that the police unions have
used Hollywood for, and it really comes down to giving
people experiences like ride along. I think in order to
really understand police, they do these. They actually invite directors
(08:34):
and showrunners and producers and writers and talent, and they
do these ride along to show the experience and really
get the industry bought in on the work of the
criminal justice system. And then these people take what they
saw on this ride along and turn it into what
(08:55):
they believe is an accurate representation of the criminal us
A system. They are just simple language and things that
are written into the script saying words like thugs, and
we still see that, but it also shows up in characters.
I think, you know, one of the biggest things is
shining this light that police are heroes and they don't
(09:19):
do wrong, and if they do do wrong, it's justified
because they're in the fight for good. So it's not
framed as corrupt, it's framed as what they have to
do to be a hero. Data from the report shows
that scripted crime series depicted criminal justice professionals coded to
be good guys committing wrongful actions more than coded bad guys.
(09:40):
The bad behavior was rarely acknowledged on screen as such,
when it was that acknowledgement came from a person of
color or a woman. Researchers say this may have conveyed
the idea that acknowledging wrongful actions is relegated to women
and people of color and not to be expected of
white men. And TV genre as a whole really just
(10:02):
perpetuates this false notion about crime, hero narratives about law enforcement,
and distorted representations about black people and not just black people,
other communities of color and women, and these hero narratives
they really mislead viewers, especially in the context of police
and police gangs, which are the antithesis of how heroically
(10:25):
cops are portrayed on television. It's completely sensationalizing for entertainment,
and they're able to be corrupt because there's always this
redeeming moment that shows why it was done. People of
color were also used to validate wrongful behavior through being
depicted as perpetrating the bad acts or endorsing them. Kelly
(10:47):
says that's a product of a homogeneous writer's room. These shows.
They often minimize racism and dismiss the need for this
real police accountability. They portray illegal and often racist behaviors
of criminal justice practitioners as justifiable, necessary, and even heroic.
But we've also found that black characters are used as
(11:10):
validators of wrongful behavior, and that's through either depicting them
as perpetrators or supportive of wrongful actions. Excessive force by
police is also represented as rare and not as harmful,
which is categorically false and it really misrepresents the realities
of police violence. The effects are the harmful misrepresentations that
(11:34):
people walk away with as real core beliefs. They invisibilize reality.
They're people out there that think that black people don't
experience racism because it doesn't happen in these shows. There
are people who believe that they're white police officers can
never be racist and it's all a lie, or they're
(11:55):
dismissing or making fun of people that are protesting and
that our activists because in their world these things don't exist,
and they believe that racism is over. So when you're
watching these shows and they remove the accurate portrayals of
people's lived experiences and the criminal justice system, people walk
(12:17):
away with a belief that none of this stuff exists,
It is all made up and black people are the problem.
Is there any value in cops centered television programs. I
think there can be if they tell an authentic story.
And that's really what we want to do and what
we're pushing to do, and that's what we're creating resources
(12:38):
for the industry to be able to do, is tell
authentic stories. I think for the longest time, there have
been so many black stories that have had to be suppressed,
and it's going to be very interesting the more we're
able to give more black voices this space to tell stories.
There are years, years upon years worth of stories that
(13:00):
aren't going to be comfortable, and there are new stories
that aren't going to be comfortable. But I think that
the more accurate we can be at telling these stories,
the more we can start to really change the narrative
around black people around the criminal justice system. This goes
back to people's perceptions and beliefs, and it shapes how
(13:21):
they go out into the world. It shapes how they
go into their jobs, it shapes how they go out
and vote, and people are making these decisions in real
life based on things that they've seen on television. There's
always going to be this tension. There's always going to
be a misunderstanding between people. And if we can tell
(13:43):
the authentic story for people to then absorb that and
start to see the world differently, they might make different
decisions when it's time to hire, when it's time to
get out and vote that have huge implications for the
future of our country. What we've seen is that there
(14:06):
are more shows that are taking this different route and
being created by different people and taking this different path.
But there's also been an increase in shows in the
crime TV genre. As we've seen this year, there's really
this like industry wide content recession where overall the industry
has ordered less shows in every genre, but there is
(14:27):
still this influx in crime TV genre. So it'll be
interesting to see how it plays out. And you know,
I think we'll have to be really vigilant about what
shows end up being cut and canceled or or or greenlit.
Are they going to reduce the ones that are doing
the most harm or are they going to cancel the
shows that are doing the most good. And I also
(14:49):
think that, you know, what we're seeing is that in
these changes, we're seeing increased representation, but because there's increased representation,
that doesn't mean that we're seeing less copaganda. Color of
Change has several proposals to fix the issues with police shows.
In our first report, we put forth, you know, a
(15:10):
series of recommendations for the entertainment industry to really establish
new standards of storytelling that are truthful and include the
real impacts of racial injustice and society and in the
criminal justice system. And we are constantly calling for writer's
rooms to hire people with real life understandings of the
(15:31):
criminal justice system and to diversify the ranks of creative talent.
People that are intentional about making these changes are coming
to organizations like Color of Change to have conversations with
us to make sure that the content that they put
out is not harmful and does not reflect all of
these stereotypes and tropes and misrepresentations of the criminal justice system.
(15:56):
Some of those we're looking at scripts, but we're also
getting into the writer's room. That's why resources like our
Writer's Room database of experts is so important, because we
are offering several people across different areas. It could be
a forensic expert, it could be somebody who is a
(16:17):
doctor and can talk about accurate representations when it comes
to what happens in hospitals and how people of color
and especially black people are impacted by these systems. We
have experts that are actually talking and consulting and available
for this work. These new standards must be supported by
(16:37):
real incentives that reward responsible storytelling as well as like
consequences that hold people accountable when they don't remove these
harmful stereotypes and narratives. There has to be a demand
for it, and I think viewers are starting to smarten
up and create that demand. But ultimately there's a bottom line,
(17:00):
and in a few years and maybe the next five
to ten, we'll we'll see it's standardizes a double bottom
line across the industry. The bottom line is always money,
and when you add a double bottom line, it's about
money and doing what's right, telling these authentic stories and
having a real responsibility to not only viewers, but just
(17:22):
culture and society. And a lot of times we know
that corporate America doesn't function like that. The one question
they want to know is it gonna make us money?
And sometimes it gets really dirty and they do things
that make money that are not good for society. So
until they add that second bottom line, you know, that's
(17:44):
when we'll continue to see a lot of the things
that are harmful. One program that aired briefly from to
homed In on a harmful practice that has plagued the
l A County Sheriff's Department for the past sixty years,
deat bed gangs more after the break Today. It's expected
(18:18):
that if you're working on a police show, you're going
to have some current or former cops in the writer's room,
and sometimes those guys get to make their own shows.
Joe Halpin is one of them, and he's an admitted
tattooed member of the Grim Reapers, whose members killed Hilberto Gutierrez.
We discussed the gang in episode three. Unfortunately, he declined
(18:40):
to do an interview for this podcast, but there's quite
a bit of information about him available. Joe was born
in Luton, England. He moved to the United States when
he was twelve. He joined l A s D. According
to County records. He told a reporter for Drama Quarterly
that he started out working in the jails, which is
(19:02):
the usual course for new recruits. He moved on to
become a training officer, and field officer before moving into
undercover narcotics operations in South Los Angeles. He also did
work with the FBI and d e A. Remember, the
task forces that did this work in the past have
been federally indicted, like in the late nineties Arco Narco scandal,
(19:23):
which was discussed in episode three. Here's former Deputy Randy Higgins,
who saw grim reapers use the same tactics that led
to the indictments. Those training officers used exactly the same
tactics when they were training officers as they did when
they were on the task force. That was back in
(19:45):
the heyday crack cocaine. So you stopped somebody in the
street they had crack cocaine. You booked it, but you
kept it because you might want to have probably cause
to arrest somebody else on another day. Every patrol deputy
had the same opportunity to take money, take drugs. You
(20:09):
could stash it and use it another day. The money
obviously bought some boats and dates and baby mama support
and all the things that deputies do with their money.
It was not just Arco Narco. It was throughout the
(20:32):
department and everybody knew it. Joe helped told reporter Louwaine
Lee at The Times columnist that he became a member
of the Grim Reapers gang. I've asked an actor to
read what Joe said. The gang starts out with people
with their backs against the wall and protecting each other.
You're in this weird world when you're a street cop.
(20:52):
You don't have the support of the administrators because those
are political people who are not going to do anything
to defend you, and then the public at large. Every
encounter you have is a negative one because cops aren't
called to any good situations and you have to immediately
take control of the situation. So you're being bombarded by
the negativity and dealing with the public that you end
up banding together to protect each other. On January six,
(21:16):
Joe was wrapping up a three month investigation that led
him and his team to a home in Lawndale. He
told The Los Angeles Times they searched a car and
found twenty kilos of cocaine. No one was arrested. The
paper says that investigators found information at the house that
took them to Cottonwood Street in Palmdale a few days later. There,
(21:37):
Joe was involved in what was the biggest drug bust
in Antelote Valley history at that point, he and other
deputies seased an estimated twenty nine million dollars worth of
cocaine and found two hundred and sixty four thousand dollars
in cash. Joe told a reporter that the home had
been the base of a distribution center. He said the
(21:57):
raid quote will delay them for a while because they'll
have to look for another place to distribute from. Deputy
District Attorney Marian M. J. Klein told The l A
Times that it is unusual for a small investigative team
based at a sheriff station to make this major a
drug bust, and that quote in the real world, it
will not make a terrible den By two thousand two,
(22:20):
Joe says he was the leader of the Grim Reapers,
but his marriage was also ending and he was being
investigated from misconduct. He recounted the moment he realized he
was being followed. I was driving and I noticed someone
off to my right and the way he sent his car.
I thought that guy must be an off duty cop.
I kept driving, made a right and the guy went
(22:40):
with me. I thought that's strange. Made another right, and
then he and the other cars went with me too,
so I thought, now we're going into a circle, so
I'm being followed. I pulled into an A t M
and I pretended I was walking up to the A
t M and watched them park and they backed into spaces,
which is another tell because cotts always want to get
out fast. So I started walking toward one of them,
(23:01):
and as soon as I did, he took off. I
got his plate and I was in an undercover car
or a truck. I ran the plate and it came
back no record on file, which tells me they're cops.
Joe says he called his lieutenant. I said, Murray, I'm
being followed. He goes, you're being paranoid. Half hour later
he called me and said, okay, somebody is following. I
(23:21):
found out later that my department was following me, but
they got worried that there would be ramifications from that,
so they farmed it out to l A p D.
And I burned them on the first day. Joe was
suspected of falsifying search warrants and consent forms. That was
really the turning point for me. I said, I'm no
longer effective as a cop. Obviously, They've lost confidence in
(23:42):
me because they feel like I'm doing things illegal. I've
lost confidence in myself because I don't think I'm the
same guy that first pinned on the badge. I thought,
I'm not doing anybody any good, and I could end up,
like a lot of cops, being either a drunk or
a madman at the end of the career. By that point,
Joe was also doing celebrity ball udy guard work on
the side, which is a very popular hustle for cops.
(24:04):
He says that while shadowing Steven Seagal during a trip
to Poland, he decided to write about his experiences as
a criminal deputy gang member. It wasn't anything I was
looking to do, but once I sat down and started
doing it, I became obsessed with it and doing it well.
There are a lot of people in this business who
are glorified tech advisors who never quite learned to write,
(24:24):
but they're kept around because they're great in the writer's
room and grated story. But I wanted to make sure
I wasn't one of those people. I eventually got out
of low end features and got into television because I
realized that's where the real writers and real experienced storytellers
were nowadays. In two thousand five, he retired from l
A s D And sold the script. He was officially
part of the entertainment industry. He wrote on several independent
(24:48):
films before landing his first television writing job in two
thousand ten on the show Dark Blue, a show about
undercover cops in l A. He continued to write on
police shows like True Justice, Hawaifi five oh, and Secrets
and Lies By. He created and sold a television show
based on his time with the Grim Reapers called The Oath.
(25:24):
Joe Helpin, creator and showrunner of The Oath, declined to
do an interview for this podcast, but we were able
to track down someone who worked on the show. My
name is Mark Llades and I'm a writer producer. My
position on The Oath was executive story editor. I also
wrote one episode. The creator of the show is a
(25:46):
fellow named Joe Helpin, who was a former Los Angeles
County Sheriff's deputy. He's a friend of mine and it
was a mentor Joe was developing for Sony the project
that become The Oath, which you know, at the time,
I believe it was called Reapers and was based loosely
on his own experience as a member of the Reapers,
(26:09):
which was a gang of working police officers within the
Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. He wrote a pilot that
fictionalized that story. Mark was brought into work on The
Oath very early on. We met on the show ice
and he was going to leave to run his own show,
which was The Oath. We had this cool, good rapport.
(26:29):
He he liked my writing, and he invited me to
join him on staff. I think it helped that my
father had been a police officer. I was able to bring,
you know, some fear of second hand experience, if nothing
else to to the project. We also had a consulting producer,
(26:50):
a veteran female writer named Kathy McCormick who had worked
on Law and Order. We had another staff writer, Elizabeth Patton.
The Oath gave her her first produce st episode of television,
and I was probably the only person of color on
that staff. I think in the case of The Oath,
Joe just brought in writers he had relationships with that
(27:10):
he knew or would help him execute this vision as
best as he could. What was the culture of the
writer's room like there was a pretty harmonious room. You
were mostly on the same page. And you know, we
worked pretty well, um together writing the show together. My
father was in law enforcement for a little while. You know,
I've known quite a few cops, and I think the
(27:32):
best of them well attest to that. You know, it
attracts the best of people, and it can also attract
the very worst of people. And it can bring out
the best in certain people and bring out the worst
in them. It's an institution, an institution that is like
any other institution, but probably even more so than than most,
(27:53):
is prone to corruption and rot from within, and that
can be very perves of and and for me, you know,
to explore that narratively, you know, that's uh that's a great,
great fun sandbox to play. And as a writer, do
you think that there is systemic racism in law enforcement
in the United States? And have to say yes, I mean,
(28:15):
I think we've seen evidence of that. It's uh so
deeply entrenched over you know, of course of generations. The
people the police are naturally going to see them as
an occupying army. The show revolves around a deputy gang
called the Ravens. Its former leader Tom Hammond begins the
(28:37):
series incarcerated from his conduct. As his son Steve tries
to keep the gang together. He's helped along by members
Pete Ramos, Karen Beach, and his adopted black brother Cole.
It's clear that the gang is the most important thing
in their lives, a choice. The second she down here
in Tattoo, nobody was more important to her than us.
(28:57):
No doubt. After listening to this pod cast, you'd be
able to recognize some of the other deputy gangs for
their real life counterparts, like the Berserkers, who are made
up of racist, mostly white deputies. Remember the Vikings in
episode two? They were definitely I can tell you they
were based on the Vikings. Here's Attorney Carol Watson, who
took on the gang in court. We were attacking the Vikings.
(29:21):
They were a neo Nazi, white supremacist group. In the Oath,
the deputy Gangs run various criminal schemes within the areas
they patrol, and only the area they patrol, or they
will be met with consequences from other deputy gangs. People
living in the neighborhoods where the Deputy Gangs of the
Oath operate in are often subjected to high rates of
(29:42):
violence at the hands of deputies. In the opening of
the series, we see Steve Hammond and his crew of
Ravens carry out an armed robbery, which seems to be
a specialty of theirs. Several police officers in the Los
Angeles area have been arrested for doing exactly this. Other
gang in the show traffic children for sexual abuse or
(30:03):
sell illegal, potentially lethal opioids on the street. They are
often working with the backing of other criminal enterprises like
the Russian Mafia or Corporate America. Not everyone is supportive
of the gangs. One character's wife discovers that he is
a member and it nearly ends their marriage. I want
to line it says that berserkers have an investigative before
(30:25):
as a cop. Gang you set your tattoo had something
to do with station pride. It's a gang symbol, isn't it.
Don't don't mine to meet Pete No, not exactly. The
gangs have a tenuous but mostly peaceful relationship with each other,
but they are always looking to collector When someone does
(30:49):
break the rules, it can lead to severe punishment. Twice
we see inked officers have their tattoos forcibly removed by
other people, one with a blowtorch and the other with
a knife. Others are even killed for breaking the gang's rules.
In the world of the Oath, the FBI is wise
to Deputy Gangs. Agent Aria Price is preparing a reco
(31:11):
case on them and forces the Ravens to cooperate for
reduced sentences. She enlist Damon Bird, a young black agent,
to infiltrate the gang and collect intel for the case.
Bird ends up sympathizing with the gang, which ends up
being his undoing. But throughout the series, the Deputy Gang
members are presented in ways to make you sympathize with them.
(31:32):
Steve Hammond leads his crew to carry out an armed
robbery on the home of a doctor, but it's the
doctor who was scamming his mother dying of cancer. Karen
Beach has a record of excessive uses of force, which
she begrudgingly unpacks in tearful therapy sessions. Pete Ramos constantly
lies to his wife, but according to him, it's for
(31:53):
her own protection. Mark says many of the plot lines
come from Joe Halpin's stories about his time the Deputy.
This show was inspired by his own experiences living and
working within that culture within the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department,
and he wanted to, you know, create a show built
(32:17):
around that. Now, I will say this as as it evolved.
You know, in the whole development process, Um the Oath
drifted further further from the actual reality. I think of
what Joe might have experienced. And we were getting notes
from the studio to you know, to um to make
(32:38):
this thing accessible, to make it, you know, a fun
ride for the audience. He tried to create like a
thrill ride, but we also tried to um layer some
moral ambiguity. He's told his stories and our our fiction
pales in comparison to the real stories. I think in
the whole process of making the show, it started to
(32:59):
get a little water or down a little bit, you know,
plot got in the way, and we got into the
production phase that you know, that's always a stressful time.
You're dealing with all of the compromises of actually being
on set what you want to do versus what you
actually can do and what's in the budget to do.
What Joe used to say was ships rise on a
(33:20):
high tide. He wanted us to feel like we we
had ownership in the show, that it wasn't just that
we weren't just working for the showrunner, that we were
contributing and we had a piece of this thing to
be proud of creatively, and we would break the stories
together early on. That was probably the most difficult and
challenging part of the job was plotting now the season arc,
(33:44):
episode by episode, all ten episodes where this story was going,
and we did it in pretty extensive detail, but we
were also at the same time getting notes back. Mark
says the plot changed several times over the course of writing.
We went through a couple of different iterations of this
thing before we finally were able to find the version
(34:08):
that that we could live with and that Sony also
could live with. We tried a lot of different things,
the reminding Joe's career for stories, but I think Sony
also had mandates about this is what they want. They
wanted a big, bad, you know, a central villain, strong
(34:28):
central villain. Sony was very adamant that they wanted this
to be even though it was in the cop genre
and it was technically a cop drama, and they wanted
it to be like unlike any other police drama on
the air, because we were dealing with basically a gang
within this fictional police department. Sony had certain elements that
(34:49):
they wanted to see in there, but we kind of
had to really rework the story according to their notes
and kind of like, you know, shoehorned into this shape
that they wanted because us, they're the ones paying for
this show. So I think there were stories that we
wanted to do that we might not have been able
to get to because it was a serialized show and
(35:11):
there was arc that we had to follow and we
had to arrive at a certain place by episode ten
and be able to have the audience be able to
feel that resolution. I think our show became more of
a heightened reality if I had had my druthers. You know,
I'm a big admirer of David Simon, and I you know,
I love shows like The Wire and more recently than
(35:33):
the project that he did, we Owned the City Um,
which address the very ills that we're talking about in
the systemic corruption that we're talking about, and I would
have liked to have done something that he was a
little closer to that. It's evident from some of the
comments made by members of the cast that they too,
began to feel connected to the deputy gangs. Lisa day
(35:55):
Maras of Deadline reported in that the cast seemed quote
extremely happy. When show runner Joe Halpin remarked at an
event that the ensemble could have been asked to join
a cop gang, Katrina Law, who portrayed Karen Beach, cheered
quote balls on. She also described the gang quote as
(36:15):
family with a quote moral compass that maybe a little off.
As the series goes on, the tone shifts in an
attempt to make the viewer by in too. Darcel Riquette
from the Chicago Tribune asked Corey Hardickt, who portrays Cole Hammon,
whether the characters have any redeeming qualities. He responded, quote,
(36:36):
there's a lot of redeeming qualities. It's more like a
slow burn. It unfolds after episode seven, after seven, eight, nine,
and ten. There are a bunch of great qualities. That's
why Joe Halpin set it up like that. Did you
have any other police officers, law enforcement officers, cops working
as consultants on this show. Yeah, Joe had a former
(36:58):
co league of his who came on board as a
technical advisor, and he was, you know, he was there
in the room, you know, during part of the writing process,
to kind of look at things and see if we
were being completely accurate. When we went into production in
San Juan, he was also there and worked with the
(37:22):
actors and advised them how to carry themselves like a cop.
Was your consultant also a member of the Deputy Gang?
I believe he was. Yes, Yeah, the consultant, Reinhardt Sugar,
was a lieutenant in the l A County Sheriff's Department.
He worked as an instructor and investigator. He worked as
(37:43):
a civilian investigator for the department as recently as not
all of the cast members appeared to have identified with
the Deputy Gang members, though Elizabeth Rahm, who portrays an
FBI agent, told you p I quote, it's a very gritty,
very uncomfortable show. The corruption that we tackle is a
real thing and it never goes away. Do you think
(38:07):
that television has an impact on how people view or
act in the world. I do. I feel like people
often take their cues from popular culture and from what
they see portrayed on the screen. I think the Oath
it kind of sheds some light on those dark corners,
even if it's in a fictional way, kind of lets
(38:30):
the audience know, opens an audience's eyes too that that
might not otherwise have thought that existed. The oath were
like any other show. We bend reality, we truncate reality,
and you know, bended to our purposes. I don't think
where the show would look to for gone completely realistic
(38:50):
portrait of criminal justice system. It might be hard not
to inadvertently glorify something. Any soprano was the hero where
he was an anti hero, supremely screwed up in the
sociopath and our show had its fair share of sociopaths,
(39:11):
And there's always that danger that people will glorify something
like that or you know, or miss the point of it.
Deputy gangs are just part of a deeper problem within
the culture at the l A County Sheriff's Department. But
not all bad deeds are committed by deputy gang members.
Wrongful arrests, brutal beatings, and even killings are carried out
(39:31):
regularly by members inside and outside of deputy gangs. That's
coming up next week. I used did a whole hood,
No fuck the police. I'm a fucking trophy. You've been
listening to a Tradition of violence, the history of deputy
gangs in the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department hosted an
executive produced by series Castle, music by Yellow Hill and
(39:54):
Steels voice acting by Garrett Werner. If you're enjoying a
tradition of violence, please give us a by star rating
and leave a written review. For breaking news and updates
and depute gangs, follow at l A s D Gangs
on social media. To support sis's reporting and for exclusive
bonus content, subscribe to the l s D Gangs Patreon.
We want to hear from you. If you have a
(40:15):
question about deputy gangs or the l s D, please
send an email to l A s D Gangs at
gmail dot com.
Morning. This podcast contains explicit language and details acts of violence.
Listener discretion is advised. When you put on a television show,
there's a high chance that it's about the cops. Television
shows about the police have been some of the most
popular since the nineteen fifties, when TVs were first introduced
to American households. Police officers and departments collaborate with production
(00:24):
teams to give them an up close look at things
from their point of view. People hurt by the police
are rarely given the same opportunity. Over seventy years of
crime dramas has had an impact on how we view
the institution of policing and how we look at each other.
And some of these shows have highlighted things like deputy
gangs and given them a positive spin. This is a
(00:51):
tradition of violence. A history of deputy gangs inside the
Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. Over the years, police dramas
have mirrored the fears and ideals of the people writing
the stories, which are overwhelmingly white men. Columnists Alyssa Rosenberg
(01:13):
wrote about this extensively for The Washington Post in in
the nineteen fifties. These programs encouraged the public to put
their faith in so called law and order style governance.
In the nineteen sixties, police procedurals, also called crime dramas,
inflated fear about increasing rates of crime. In the nineteen eighties,
(01:35):
Bruce Willis saved a skyscraper full of office workers from
a radical East German, and Sean Penn battled the crips
and the bloods. A century ago, the International Association of
Chiefs of Police adopted a resolution condemning the movie business because,
according to the group's president quote, the police are sometimes
(01:55):
made to appear ridiculous. The Supreme Court ruled in nineteen
five teen that movies were not protected by the First Amendment.
It took thirty years to reverse that decision. But as
the industry grew bigger, richer, and more powerful, the relationship
with police began to soften. Studios needed the cops to
(02:15):
cover up the antics of its stars, like the rape
and manslaughter trials of Roscoe Fatty Arbuckle, a silent film comedian,
so it was in their best interest to get along.
This meant bringing on police to be technical advisors on productions,
to give their opinions about how things were written and performed.
One of those advisors would inspire a show that changed
(02:38):
the course of television history. Dragnet premiered on TV in
nineteen fifty one. The show takes its name from the
police system of using coordination to apprehend suspects. It was
created by actor Jack Webb, who was inspired by the
tales of a Los Angeles Police Department detective who was
advising on a movie Web acted in. Dragnet started as
(03:01):
a radio program, but as a television show, it created
the procedural formula that is still followed by shows today.
Web stars as police detective Sergeant Joe Friday. Web had
a close relationship with then l a p D Chief
William Parker, an outspoken racist who introduced segregationist policies within
(03:21):
the department. Every single script was approved by the l
a p D. Anything they didn't like was cut out
of the story. Inconvenient realities like parker banning the hiring
of black officers weren't included either. In exchange, Dragnet got
to use real police officers, vehicles, and equipment during production
(03:42):
free of charge. That type of collaboration became a model
for other shows that followed. In Highway Patrol was created
after a commissioner demanded that his own public relations division
quote get us a show like Dragnet. FBI director j
Edgar Hoover had full script approval on ABC's The FBI,
(04:04):
which ran for ten years starting in nineteen Hoover also
politically vetted the cast. Today, it's expected for police shows
to have cops working as consultants, writers, and actors go
on right along with local police. For the past ten years,
about twenty of all scripted broadcast TV shows have been
(04:25):
about police, according to analysis from The Hollywood Reporter. Within
scripted dramas, cops shows account for half of all broadcast programming.
Forty percent of the top watch television shows were about
the police. Studies have shown that all of this police
programming has an effect on your perceptions. So I am
(04:48):
Kelly Rosel. I am the chief marketing and storytelling officer
with Color of Change. Our mission is really to make
it a more human and less hastile world for black
people in America, really working to advance racial equity and
hold corporations in the entertainment industry accountable. Why are television
shows about the police so popular? I think it really
(05:11):
comes down to what sells. I think we as viewers
of content, we really invest a lot mentally and emotionally
in this content, and there is this want for information,
and I think that people watch these shows to learn
(05:32):
and and also entertain themselves. But what ultimately happens is
it begins to inform their beliefs about the world, and
instead of it being this escape, it really becomes this
thing that informs their view on life. I would define
copaganda as this misinformation and misleading that media creates around
(05:58):
the criminal justice system. Who are the people that are
writing these shows? We know the key players like Dick
Wolfe in Law and Order, but overall we're seeing that
the people writing the shows are not the people with
the real, authentic stories and the lived experiences. In Color
of Change and the usc On and Burg, Norman Lear
(06:20):
Center's Media Impact Project published a landmark report entitled Normalizing Injustice.
It found that cops centered television shows are inaccurate and
give viewers a warped view of the criminal justice system.
I helped work on the second subsequent report, which is
due out soon. In our first report, one percent of
showrunners in TV. That was twenty one out of the
(06:43):
six shows that we analyzed at least eight one percent
of writers were white, with only nine percent being black,
and then across the genre, twenty of the twenty six
series had either no black writers or just one black writer.
And then when it comes to women, only thirty seven
percent of writers across the genre were women and only
(07:03):
eleven percent were women of color. We've seen a lot
of stories from young black creators and producers and writers
that have been on sets on social media speak out
about their experiences of mistreatment or not having an actual voice.
And until these sets are set up with decision makers
(07:26):
that are not necessarily all white, there's always going to
be the struggle of getting black voices heard and having
that level of respect in these environments. We know historically
within corporate America there is a lot of nepotism. People
are hiring the people that they know. There's a lack
(07:47):
of data being captured. How can you know who you're
not hiring if you're not measuring anything. Ultimately, they just
need to be intentional, and we have not seen that.
So decision makers are hiring the people that they want,
that they know that are a part of this very
small pool of people within the industry. Within that small pool.
(08:09):
Experiences with the police are very limited. It really ties
back to the pr machine that the police unions have
used Hollywood for, and it really comes down to giving
people experiences like ride along. I think in order to
really understand police, they do these. They actually invite directors
(08:34):
and showrunners and producers and writers and talent, and they
do these ride along to show the experience and really
get the industry bought in on the work of the
criminal justice system. And then these people take what they
saw on this ride along and turn it into what
(08:55):
they believe is an accurate representation of the criminal us
A system. They are just simple language and things that
are written into the script saying words like thugs, and
we still see that, but it also shows up in characters.
I think, you know, one of the biggest things is
shining this light that police are heroes and they don't
(09:19):
do wrong, and if they do do wrong, it's justified
because they're in the fight for good. So it's not
framed as corrupt, it's framed as what they have to
do to be a hero. Data from the report shows
that scripted crime series depicted criminal justice professionals coded to
be good guys committing wrongful actions more than coded bad guys.
(09:40):
The bad behavior was rarely acknowledged on screen as such,
when it was that acknowledgement came from a person of
color or a woman. Researchers say this may have conveyed
the idea that acknowledging wrongful actions is relegated to women
and people of color and not to be expected of
white men. And TV genre as a whole really just
(10:02):
perpetuates this false notion about crime, hero narratives about law enforcement,
and distorted representations about black people and not just black people,
other communities of color and women, and these hero narratives
they really mislead viewers, especially in the context of police
and police gangs, which are the antithesis of how heroically
(10:25):
cops are portrayed on television. It's completely sensationalizing for entertainment,
and they're able to be corrupt because there's always this
redeeming moment that shows why it was done. People of
color were also used to validate wrongful behavior through being
depicted as perpetrating the bad acts or endorsing them. Kelly
(10:47):
says that's a product of a homogeneous writer's room. These shows.
They often minimize racism and dismiss the need for this
real police accountability. They portray illegal and often racist behaviors
of criminal justice practitioners as justifiable, necessary, and even heroic.
But we've also found that black characters are used as
(11:10):
validators of wrongful behavior, and that's through either depicting them
as perpetrators or supportive of wrongful actions. Excessive force by
police is also represented as rare and not as harmful,
which is categorically false and it really misrepresents the realities
of police violence. The effects are the harmful misrepresentations that
(11:34):
people walk away with as real core beliefs. They invisibilize reality.
They're people out there that think that black people don't
experience racism because it doesn't happen in these shows. There
are people who believe that they're white police officers can
never be racist and it's all a lie, or they're
(11:55):
dismissing or making fun of people that are protesting and
that our activists because in their world these things don't exist,
and they believe that racism is over. So when you're
watching these shows and they remove the accurate portrayals of
people's lived experiences and the criminal justice system, people walk
(12:17):
away with a belief that none of this stuff exists,
It is all made up and black people are the problem.
Is there any value in cops centered television programs. I
think there can be if they tell an authentic story.
And that's really what we want to do and what
we're pushing to do, and that's what we're creating resources
(12:38):
for the industry to be able to do, is tell
authentic stories. I think for the longest time, there have
been so many black stories that have had to be suppressed,
and it's going to be very interesting the more we're
able to give more black voices this space to tell stories.
There are years, years upon years worth of stories that
(13:00):
aren't going to be comfortable, and there are new stories
that aren't going to be comfortable. But I think that
the more accurate we can be at telling these stories,
the more we can start to really change the narrative
around black people around the criminal justice system. This goes
back to people's perceptions and beliefs, and it shapes how
(13:21):
they go out into the world. It shapes how they
go into their jobs, it shapes how they go out
and vote, and people are making these decisions in real
life based on things that they've seen on television. There's
always going to be this tension. There's always going to
be a misunderstanding between people. And if we can tell
(13:43):
the authentic story for people to then absorb that and
start to see the world differently, they might make different
decisions when it's time to hire, when it's time to
get out and vote that have huge implications for the
future of our country. What we've seen is that there
(14:06):
are more shows that are taking this different route and
being created by different people and taking this different path.
But there's also been an increase in shows in the
crime TV genre. As we've seen this year, there's really
this like industry wide content recession where overall the industry
has ordered less shows in every genre, but there is
(14:27):
still this influx in crime TV genre. So it'll be
interesting to see how it plays out. And you know,
I think we'll have to be really vigilant about what
shows end up being cut and canceled or or or greenlit.
Are they going to reduce the ones that are doing
the most harm or are they going to cancel the
shows that are doing the most good. And I also
(14:49):
think that, you know, what we're seeing is that in
these changes, we're seeing increased representation, but because there's increased representation,
that doesn't mean that we're seeing less copaganda. Color of
Change has several proposals to fix the issues with police shows.
In our first report, we put forth, you know, a
(15:10):
series of recommendations for the entertainment industry to really establish
new standards of storytelling that are truthful and include the
real impacts of racial injustice and society and in the
criminal justice system. And we are constantly calling for writer's
rooms to hire people with real life understandings of the
(15:31):
criminal justice system and to diversify the ranks of creative talent.
People that are intentional about making these changes are coming
to organizations like Color of Change to have conversations with
us to make sure that the content that they put
out is not harmful and does not reflect all of
these stereotypes and tropes and misrepresentations of the criminal justice system.
(15:56):
Some of those we're looking at scripts, but we're also
getting into the writer's room. That's why resources like our
Writer's Room database of experts is so important, because we
are offering several people across different areas. It could be
a forensic expert, it could be somebody who is a
(16:17):
doctor and can talk about accurate representations when it comes
to what happens in hospitals and how people of color
and especially black people are impacted by these systems. We
have experts that are actually talking and consulting and available
for this work. These new standards must be supported by
(16:37):
real incentives that reward responsible storytelling as well as like
consequences that hold people accountable when they don't remove these
harmful stereotypes and narratives. There has to be a demand
for it, and I think viewers are starting to smarten
up and create that demand. But ultimately there's a bottom line,
(17:00):
and in a few years and maybe the next five
to ten, we'll we'll see it's standardizes a double bottom
line across the industry. The bottom line is always money,
and when you add a double bottom line, it's about
money and doing what's right, telling these authentic stories and
having a real responsibility to not only viewers, but just
(17:22):
culture and society. And a lot of times we know
that corporate America doesn't function like that. The one question
they want to know is it gonna make us money?
And sometimes it gets really dirty and they do things
that make money that are not good for society. So
until they add that second bottom line, you know, that's
(17:44):
when we'll continue to see a lot of the things
that are harmful. One program that aired briefly from to
homed In on a harmful practice that has plagued the
l A County Sheriff's Department for the past sixty years,
deat bed gangs more after the break Today. It's expected
(18:18):
that if you're working on a police show, you're going
to have some current or former cops in the writer's room,
and sometimes those guys get to make their own shows.
Joe Halpin is one of them, and he's an admitted
tattooed member of the Grim Reapers, whose members killed Hilberto Gutierrez.
We discussed the gang in episode three. Unfortunately, he declined
(18:40):
to do an interview for this podcast, but there's quite
a bit of information about him available. Joe was born
in Luton, England. He moved to the United States when
he was twelve. He joined l A s D. According
to County records. He told a reporter for Drama Quarterly
that he started out working in the jails, which is
(19:02):
the usual course for new recruits. He moved on to
become a training officer, and field officer before moving into
undercover narcotics operations in South Los Angeles. He also did
work with the FBI and d e A. Remember, the
task forces that did this work in the past have
been federally indicted, like in the late nineties Arco Narco scandal,
(19:23):
which was discussed in episode three. Here's former Deputy Randy Higgins,
who saw grim reapers use the same tactics that led
to the indictments. Those training officers used exactly the same
tactics when they were training officers as they did when
they were on the task force. That was back in
(19:45):
the heyday crack cocaine. So you stopped somebody in the
street they had crack cocaine. You booked it, but you
kept it because you might want to have probably cause
to arrest somebody else on another day. Every patrol deputy
had the same opportunity to take money, take drugs. You
(20:09):
could stash it and use it another day. The money
obviously bought some boats and dates and baby mama support
and all the things that deputies do with their money.
It was not just Arco Narco. It was throughout the
(20:32):
department and everybody knew it. Joe helped told reporter Louwaine
Lee at The Times columnist that he became a member
of the Grim Reapers gang. I've asked an actor to
read what Joe said. The gang starts out with people
with their backs against the wall and protecting each other.
You're in this weird world when you're a street cop.
(20:52):
You don't have the support of the administrators because those
are political people who are not going to do anything
to defend you, and then the public at large. Every
encounter you have is a negative one because cops aren't
called to any good situations and you have to immediately
take control of the situation. So you're being bombarded by
the negativity and dealing with the public that you end
up banding together to protect each other. On January six,
(21:16):
Joe was wrapping up a three month investigation that led
him and his team to a home in Lawndale. He
told The Los Angeles Times they searched a car and
found twenty kilos of cocaine. No one was arrested. The
paper says that investigators found information at the house that
took them to Cottonwood Street in Palmdale a few days later. There,
(21:37):
Joe was involved in what was the biggest drug bust
in Antelote Valley history at that point, he and other
deputies seased an estimated twenty nine million dollars worth of
cocaine and found two hundred and sixty four thousand dollars
in cash. Joe told a reporter that the home had
been the base of a distribution center. He said the
(21:57):
raid quote will delay them for a while because they'll
have to look for another place to distribute from. Deputy
District Attorney Marian M. J. Klein told The l A
Times that it is unusual for a small investigative team
based at a sheriff station to make this major a
drug bust, and that quote in the real world, it
will not make a terrible den By two thousand two,
(22:20):
Joe says he was the leader of the Grim Reapers,
but his marriage was also ending and he was being
investigated from misconduct. He recounted the moment he realized he
was being followed. I was driving and I noticed someone
off to my right and the way he sent his car.
I thought that guy must be an off duty cop.
I kept driving, made a right and the guy went
(22:40):
with me. I thought that's strange. Made another right, and
then he and the other cars went with me too,
so I thought, now we're going into a circle, so
I'm being followed. I pulled into an A t M
and I pretended I was walking up to the A
t M and watched them park and they backed into spaces,
which is another tell because cotts always want to get
out fast. So I started walking toward one of them,
(23:01):
and as soon as I did, he took off. I
got his plate and I was in an undercover car
or a truck. I ran the plate and it came
back no record on file, which tells me they're cops.
Joe says he called his lieutenant. I said, Murray, I'm
being followed. He goes, you're being paranoid. Half hour later
he called me and said, okay, somebody is following. I
(23:21):
found out later that my department was following me, but
they got worried that there would be ramifications from that,
so they farmed it out to l A p D.
And I burned them on the first day. Joe was
suspected of falsifying search warrants and consent forms. That was
really the turning point for me. I said, I'm no
longer effective as a cop. Obviously, They've lost confidence in
(23:42):
me because they feel like I'm doing things illegal. I've
lost confidence in myself because I don't think I'm the
same guy that first pinned on the badge. I thought,
I'm not doing anybody any good, and I could end up,
like a lot of cops, being either a drunk or
a madman at the end of the career. By that point,
Joe was also doing celebrity ball udy guard work on
the side, which is a very popular hustle for cops.
(24:04):
He says that while shadowing Steven Seagal during a trip
to Poland, he decided to write about his experiences as
a criminal deputy gang member. It wasn't anything I was
looking to do, but once I sat down and started
doing it, I became obsessed with it and doing it well.
There are a lot of people in this business who
are glorified tech advisors who never quite learned to write,
(24:24):
but they're kept around because they're great in the writer's
room and grated story. But I wanted to make sure
I wasn't one of those people. I eventually got out
of low end features and got into television because I
realized that's where the real writers and real experienced storytellers
were nowadays. In two thousand five, he retired from l
A s D And sold the script. He was officially
part of the entertainment industry. He wrote on several independent
(24:48):
films before landing his first television writing job in two
thousand ten on the show Dark Blue, a show about
undercover cops in l A. He continued to write on
police shows like True Justice, Hawaifi five oh, and Secrets
and Lies By. He created and sold a television show
based on his time with the Grim Reapers called The Oath.
(25:24):
Joe Helpin, creator and showrunner of The Oath, declined to
do an interview for this podcast, but we were able
to track down someone who worked on the show. My
name is Mark Llades and I'm a writer producer. My
position on The Oath was executive story editor. I also
wrote one episode. The creator of the show is a
(25:46):
fellow named Joe Helpin, who was a former Los Angeles
County Sheriff's deputy. He's a friend of mine and it
was a mentor Joe was developing for Sony the project
that become The Oath, which you know, at the time,
I believe it was called Reapers and was based loosely
on his own experience as a member of the Reapers,
(26:09):
which was a gang of working police officers within the
Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. He wrote a pilot that
fictionalized that story. Mark was brought into work on The
Oath very early on. We met on the show ice
and he was going to leave to run his own show,
which was The Oath. We had this cool, good rapport.
(26:29):
He he liked my writing, and he invited me to
join him on staff. I think it helped that my
father had been a police officer. I was able to bring,
you know, some fear of second hand experience, if nothing
else to to the project. We also had a consulting producer,
(26:50):
a veteran female writer named Kathy McCormick who had worked
on Law and Order. We had another staff writer, Elizabeth Patton.
The Oath gave her her first produce st episode of television,
and I was probably the only person of color on
that staff. I think in the case of The Oath,
Joe just brought in writers he had relationships with that
(27:10):
he knew or would help him execute this vision as
best as he could. What was the culture of the
writer's room like there was a pretty harmonious room. You
were mostly on the same page. And you know, we
worked pretty well, um together writing the show together. My
father was in law enforcement for a little while. You know,
I've known quite a few cops, and I think the
(27:32):
best of them well attest to that. You know, it
attracts the best of people, and it can also attract
the very worst of people. And it can bring out
the best in certain people and bring out the worst
in them. It's an institution, an institution that is like
any other institution, but probably even more so than than most,
(27:53):
is prone to corruption and rot from within, and that
can be very perves of and and for me, you know,
to explore that narratively, you know, that's uh that's a great,
great fun sandbox to play. And as a writer, do
you think that there is systemic racism in law enforcement
in the United States? And have to say yes, I mean,
(28:15):
I think we've seen evidence of that. It's uh so
deeply entrenched over you know, of course of generations. The
people the police are naturally going to see them as
an occupying army. The show revolves around a deputy gang
called the Ravens. Its former leader Tom Hammond begins the
(28:37):
series incarcerated from his conduct. As his son Steve tries
to keep the gang together. He's helped along by members
Pete Ramos, Karen Beach, and his adopted black brother Cole.
It's clear that the gang is the most important thing
in their lives, a choice. The second she down here
in Tattoo, nobody was more important to her than us.
(28:57):
No doubt. After listening to this pod cast, you'd be
able to recognize some of the other deputy gangs for
their real life counterparts, like the Berserkers, who are made
up of racist, mostly white deputies. Remember the Vikings in
episode two? They were definitely I can tell you they
were based on the Vikings. Here's Attorney Carol Watson, who
took on the gang in court. We were attacking the Vikings.
(29:21):
They were a neo Nazi, white supremacist group. In the Oath,
the deputy Gangs run various criminal schemes within the areas
they patrol, and only the area they patrol, or they
will be met with consequences from other deputy gangs. People
living in the neighborhoods where the Deputy Gangs of the
Oath operate in are often subjected to high rates of
(29:42):
violence at the hands of deputies. In the opening of
the series, we see Steve Hammond and his crew of
Ravens carry out an armed robbery, which seems to be
a specialty of theirs. Several police officers in the Los
Angeles area have been arrested for doing exactly this. Other
gang in the show traffic children for sexual abuse or
(30:03):
sell illegal, potentially lethal opioids on the street. They are
often working with the backing of other criminal enterprises like
the Russian Mafia or Corporate America. Not everyone is supportive
of the gangs. One character's wife discovers that he is
a member and it nearly ends their marriage. I want
to line it says that berserkers have an investigative before
(30:25):
as a cop. Gang you set your tattoo had something
to do with station pride. It's a gang symbol, isn't it.
Don't don't mine to meet Pete No, not exactly. The
gangs have a tenuous but mostly peaceful relationship with each other,
but they are always looking to collector When someone does
(30:49):
break the rules, it can lead to severe punishment. Twice
we see inked officers have their tattoos forcibly removed by
other people, one with a blowtorch and the other with
a knife. Others are even killed for breaking the gang's rules.
In the world of the Oath, the FBI is wise
to Deputy Gangs. Agent Aria Price is preparing a reco
(31:11):
case on them and forces the Ravens to cooperate for
reduced sentences. She enlist Damon Bird, a young black agent,
to infiltrate the gang and collect intel for the case.
Bird ends up sympathizing with the gang, which ends up
being his undoing. But throughout the series, the Deputy Gang
members are presented in ways to make you sympathize with them.
(31:32):
Steve Hammond leads his crew to carry out an armed
robbery on the home of a doctor, but it's the
doctor who was scamming his mother dying of cancer. Karen
Beach has a record of excessive uses of force, which
she begrudgingly unpacks in tearful therapy sessions. Pete Ramos constantly
lies to his wife, but according to him, it's for
(31:53):
her own protection. Mark says many of the plot lines
come from Joe Halpin's stories about his time the Deputy.
This show was inspired by his own experiences living and
working within that culture within the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department,
and he wanted to, you know, create a show built
(32:17):
around that. Now, I will say this as as it evolved.
You know, in the whole development process, Um the Oath
drifted further further from the actual reality. I think of
what Joe might have experienced. And we were getting notes
from the studio to you know, to um to make
(32:38):
this thing accessible, to make it, you know, a fun
ride for the audience. He tried to create like a
thrill ride, but we also tried to um layer some
moral ambiguity. He's told his stories and our our fiction
pales in comparison to the real stories. I think in
the whole process of making the show, it started to
(32:59):
get a little water or down a little bit, you know,
plot got in the way, and we got into the
production phase that you know, that's always a stressful time.
You're dealing with all of the compromises of actually being
on set what you want to do versus what you
actually can do and what's in the budget to do.
What Joe used to say was ships rise on a
(33:20):
high tide. He wanted us to feel like we we
had ownership in the show, that it wasn't just that
we weren't just working for the showrunner, that we were
contributing and we had a piece of this thing to
be proud of creatively, and we would break the stories
together early on. That was probably the most difficult and
challenging part of the job was plotting now the season arc,
(33:44):
episode by episode, all ten episodes where this story was going,
and we did it in pretty extensive detail, but we
were also at the same time getting notes back. Mark
says the plot changed several times over the course of writing.
We went through a couple of different iterations of this
thing before we finally were able to find the version
(34:08):
that that we could live with and that Sony also
could live with. We tried a lot of different things,
the reminding Joe's career for stories, but I think Sony
also had mandates about this is what they want. They
wanted a big, bad, you know, a central villain, strong
(34:28):
central villain. Sony was very adamant that they wanted this
to be even though it was in the cop genre
and it was technically a cop drama, and they wanted
it to be like unlike any other police drama on
the air, because we were dealing with basically a gang
within this fictional police department. Sony had certain elements that
(34:49):
they wanted to see in there, but we kind of
had to really rework the story according to their notes
and kind of like, you know, shoehorned into this shape
that they wanted because us, they're the ones paying for
this show. So I think there were stories that we
wanted to do that we might not have been able
to get to because it was a serialized show and
(35:11):
there was arc that we had to follow and we
had to arrive at a certain place by episode ten
and be able to have the audience be able to
feel that resolution. I think our show became more of
a heightened reality if I had had my druthers. You know,
I'm a big admirer of David Simon, and I you know,
I love shows like The Wire and more recently than
(35:33):
the project that he did, we Owned the City Um,
which address the very ills that we're talking about in
the systemic corruption that we're talking about, and I would
have liked to have done something that he was a
little closer to that. It's evident from some of the
comments made by members of the cast that they too,
began to feel connected to the deputy gangs. Lisa day
(35:55):
Maras of Deadline reported in that the cast seemed quote
extremely happy. When show runner Joe Halpin remarked at an
event that the ensemble could have been asked to join
a cop gang, Katrina Law, who portrayed Karen Beach, cheered
quote balls on. She also described the gang quote as
(36:15):
family with a quote moral compass that maybe a little off.
As the series goes on, the tone shifts in an
attempt to make the viewer by in too. Darcel Riquette
from the Chicago Tribune asked Corey Hardickt, who portrays Cole Hammon,
whether the characters have any redeeming qualities. He responded, quote,
(36:36):
there's a lot of redeeming qualities. It's more like a
slow burn. It unfolds after episode seven, after seven, eight, nine,
and ten. There are a bunch of great qualities. That's
why Joe Halpin set it up like that. Did you
have any other police officers, law enforcement officers, cops working
as consultants on this show. Yeah, Joe had a former
(36:58):
co league of his who came on board as a
technical advisor, and he was, you know, he was there
in the room, you know, during part of the writing process,
to kind of look at things and see if we
were being completely accurate. When we went into production in
San Juan, he was also there and worked with the
(37:22):
actors and advised them how to carry themselves like a cop.
Was your consultant also a member of the Deputy Gang?
I believe he was. Yes, Yeah, the consultant, Reinhardt Sugar,
was a lieutenant in the l A County Sheriff's Department.
He worked as an instructor and investigator. He worked as
(37:43):
a civilian investigator for the department as recently as not
all of the cast members appeared to have identified with
the Deputy Gang members, though Elizabeth Rahm, who portrays an
FBI agent, told you p I quote, it's a very gritty,
very uncomfortable show. The corruption that we tackle is a
real thing and it never goes away. Do you think
(38:07):
that television has an impact on how people view or
act in the world. I do. I feel like people
often take their cues from popular culture and from what
they see portrayed on the screen. I think the Oath
it kind of sheds some light on those dark corners,
even if it's in a fictional way, kind of lets
(38:30):
the audience know, opens an audience's eyes too that that
might not otherwise have thought that existed. The oath were
like any other show. We bend reality, we truncate reality,
and you know, bended to our purposes. I don't think
where the show would look to for gone completely realistic
(38:50):
portrait of criminal justice system. It might be hard not
to inadvertently glorify something. Any soprano was the hero where
he was an anti hero, supremely screwed up in the
sociopath and our show had its fair share of sociopaths,
(39:11):
And there's always that danger that people will glorify something
like that or you know, or miss the point of it.
Deputy gangs are just part of a deeper problem within
the culture at the l A County Sheriff's Department. But
not all bad deeds are committed by deputy gang members.
Wrongful arrests, brutal beatings, and even killings are carried out
(39:31):
regularly by members inside and outside of deputy gangs. That's
coming up next week. I used did a whole hood,
No fuck the police. I'm a fucking trophy. You've been
listening to a Tradition of violence, the history of deputy
gangs in the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department hosted an
executive produced by series Castle, music by Yellow Hill and
(39:54):
Steels voice acting by Garrett Werner. If you're enjoying a
tradition of violence, please give us a by star rating
and leave a written review. For breaking news and updates
and depute gangs, follow at l A s D Gangs
on social media. To support sis's reporting and for exclusive
bonus content, subscribe to the l s D Gangs Patreon.
We want to hear from you. If you have a
(40:15):
question about deputy gangs or the l s D, please
send an email to l A s D Gangs at
gmail dot com.
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