October 19, 2022 • 47 mins
The Lynwood Vikings terrorized Los Angeles resident's and other deputies who resisted their brutality. One man died trying to bring them down.
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. The streets were becoming more dangerous
than Lynwood, deputies at the Linwood station began using their
own gang theme nickname for the station, LVS twenty five
or Lynwood Vario Station twenty five. Viking spray painted walls
(00:24):
and power poles around the city with the tag to
mark what they saw as their turf. Two deputies reported
seeing LVS twenty five carved into patrol vehicles. The Vikings
even adopted street lango and started calling members of the
gang Homeboys and long time officers o g s. Everyone
at the Linwood station knew about the Vikings. Most people
(00:47):
went along with it because if you didn't, you could
be killed. Racism was also on full display. A group
of Vikings who covered the early morning shift called themselves
O G c F or, an acronym for original Gangster
crime Fighter that later came to incorporate a Spanish language
slur for black people. The Los Angeles Times reported that
(01:10):
the Linwood station had a quote map of Linwood in
the shape of Africa, racist cartoons of black men, and
a mock ticket to Africa on the wall An, anonymous
Viking told the Long Beach Press Telegram that quote, it's
the neighborhood, the environment, what we're up against that makes
us vikings. You have to have a strong idea out
(01:31):
there because of the minority element. It's like a war.
This is a tradition of violence, a history of deputy
gangs inside the Los Angeles County Sheriff's departments et gangs. Look,
(01:59):
let's not. And that's when the Lieutenant Roger Clark came
face to face with a Viking while he was acting
(02:19):
captain at the Crescenta Valley station. I get a call
from Bob Edmunds, You're going to get Deputy Armstrong as
a prisoner, and I go okay. Robert Armstrong was a
deputy who shot pregnant two year old to Lois Young twice.
She was hit once in the chest and once in
the stomach. One of the bullets had her unborn son
(02:41):
in the head, killing him. Now, all I knew is
that Armstrong had been involved in a shooting and he
had been prosecuted, and then he gets sentenced to county time,
not stay prison. That's all I knew. Armstrong didn't serve
his time in a county jail facility. Instead, he was
(03:01):
housed at the Crescenta Valley station as what's called a
trustee Contingent. Trustees are incarcerated people with records of good
behavior who are selected to perform things like janitorial services
at local stations. So I go through all the other trustees,
you know, make sure I have a job for him.
(03:22):
He's going to paint the he's gonna he is going
to run the crew that's going to paint the basement.
I made a point of talking to him every single day,
take his temperature. So eventually he tells me what happened,
and I'm just stunned. And the story is he starts out,
you know, in the jail so and all he wanted
(03:43):
to do is really be a good deputy. That's it.
He goes to UH Santa Candalina. Then he winds up
in Lynwood and he's gets recruited by lieutenant who I know,
Dennis Locum. I knew him, worked with him. I couldn't
believe he did this, But he started this group of
(04:04):
guys on early morning to go out and take care
of business and gave him card launch So they'll support
you anything you do. The group that Armstrong had been
recruited into the Linwood Vikings gang. Well, and it started
out stealing money from what they consider crooks, uh, fabricating
police reports, using force, blah blah blah okay, and bending
(04:28):
all the rules. Well, as you know, if you want
to get into a house, you got to have a
search warrant right or or an emergency. So he gets
transferred to Temple Station, which is a totally different division.
And Temple's got a problem a house that's selling narcotics.
Everybody knows it, and they turn it over to Narcotics
(04:51):
to handle. And the way you do it is you
get an undercover, you know, mark money and do some
buys and hit it with the search warrant. Everybody goes
to jail. And it wasn't moving fast enough for the guys,
and they start complaining about it. Armstrong had an idea,
and he's early mornings. They're sitting around complaining and Armstrong says, well, hell,
(05:16):
if we were in Lynwood, we'd take care of this ourselves.
And the guys say, well, what are you talking about?
He said, We'll watch this. So he goes this is
days of the pay phone, you know, goes to a paystation,
calls the station and says, I am anonymous, I lived
next door to He gives the address. Then Armstrong started
to lie, something very very terrible is going on down there.
(05:36):
In fact, it sounds like someone's getting killed. You'd better
send somebody, and he walks back to the car. He says,
we're going to get the call. The station received the
call for service and routed it back to Armstrong's car
and call comes in an unknown trouble, Da da da
dad the address. Now his plan is I'm going to
the house. I'm gonna kick that door, going to toss
(05:58):
the house and say that the dope, the money, the
scales and everything's on the coffee table as we come in,
and people are screaming for help when we arrive, just
as we as we reported to us. But when he
gets there, it's all quiet. Of course, he doesn't realize
that the guy who's selling the dope takes his product
and money away and leaves his pregnant girlfriend behind and
(06:22):
gives her a inoperable caliber rifle to wave that guys
to chase him away. So when Armstrong arrives, all quiet right,
goes to the door, tries to kick the door doors reinforced,
can't get through. She hears it, thinks it's a disgrintled
customer opens the door with the rifle, he shoots her.
(06:46):
Roger was horrified. I hear this story, I said, Robert,
tell me this is not true. Robert takes his leg,
rolls up, his points to the tattoo, and I go,
stay there, thank you very much. I run to my office,
(07:07):
pick up the phone, call my my chain of command,
Commander Hanky. So, for God's sakes, get down here with
a tape recorder and an internal affairs You've got to
hear this story. At that point I hear from him.
The department knows all about it. So that was the
one and only time I thought I was going to
throw up in my entire career. Community residents were frequently
(07:31):
brutalized by racist vikings. There are literally hundreds of examples.
On October, Dimitrio Carrio stopped to speak to a woman
receiving a citation from a deputy sheriff. Deputies Elizabeth Smith
and Anthony Campbell beat Cario too and called him racial slurs.
(07:52):
He was charged with resisting arrest, but was acquitted at trial.
February eleven, ex deputies arrested Fernando Martinez and shoved his
head into the patrol vehicle window until it cracked, and
refused to give him medical attention. Two blocks away, Vikings
dragged two men off of their front porch and beat
(08:14):
them with flashlights. The men were initially allowed to leave
after the beating, but after a neighbor complained, one was
taken to the hospital and arrested. Four days later, February,
four black men gathered at an auto shop were beaten
by Vikings. The deputies also tore apart the shop and
(08:34):
held guns to the heads of two of the men.
On March first, the Vikings carried out six botched raids.
Several Latina families, including young children, elderly and disabled people,
were held at gunpoint. Several people were taken into custody
and beaten. Two groups of Vikings unlawfully detained a Latina
(08:54):
family of seven On March fo one pregnant woman was
assaulted and an eighty two year old grandmother was held
at gunpoint as she lay in bed. On April thirteen,
Vikings arrested Raoul Gonzalez or attempted robbery and beat him,
then imprisoned him for several days. The next day, a
(09:16):
Viking arrested Jess Melendres and beat him in the back
of their patrol car while he was handcuffed. Then they
brought Melendre's inside of their station, handcuffed him to a
swivel chair, and continued beating him. Fernando Martinez, whose head
was shoved into the patrol car window, was arrested again
on April fifteenth, nine and driven recklessly while handcuffed, causing
(09:41):
his head to smash into the metal partition separating the
front and back seats of the vehicle. Once Martinez arrived
at the station, deputies beat, choked, and kicked him. Two
days later, Salvador Presciato and Raphael Ochoa were arrested and beaten.
One deputy shoved the loaded revolver into a Choa's mouth
(10:01):
and told him, quote, every time you see us, we
are going to funk with you, and just three days later,
nine deputies stopped Presciato and Ochoa again. Presciato was kept
in a dark cell and beaten, while a Choa's house
was rated without a warrant. Two weeks later, Vikings attacked
Darren Thomas Michael Sterling, Kevin Marshall, and William Scott, all black.
(10:27):
While they stood in their yard. Deputies drove recklessly on
the ways to the station, causing the men to fall
on the vehicle's hard surfaces. Once they arrived, they were
taken to a trailer in the station's parking lot used
by deputies assigned to the gangs and beaten. Deputies used
racial slurs as they continually pummeled the men. Darren Thomas
(10:48):
was kicked in the face, choked into unconsciousness twice, and
electrocuted with a taser. One deputy held a shotgun to
Darren's head. Darren was charged with battery on an oficer
and prosecuted, despite the fact that he was compliant and
did nothing wrong. One year later, the charges were dismissed
in a mistrial. On May five, deputies shot and killed
(11:13):
fifteen year old Lawrence Johnson. One week later, two Viking
associates opened fire on an unarmed Tracy Bats, who survived
the shooting. A few weeks later, deputies tried to kill
Tracy again. They shot him in the right leg and
set an attack dog on the injury. Later that month,
Vikings beat Ron Dalton Eric Jones and Marcello Gonzalez. One
(11:37):
of the deputies shoved a loaded revolver into Dalton's mouth
and threatened to blow his head off. Another deputy put
a gun to gonzalez head and pulled the trigger, but
the gun did not fire. On Elze Coleman was chased
down and shot by Deputy Paul Archimbald, who falsified evidence
(11:58):
in the investigation of the in it. Coleman was initially
charged with brandishing a gun, but acquitted. The Vikings and
their brutal style of policing were co signed by the
deputy's union. The August issue of the Association of Los
Angeles Deputy Sheriffs printed a photo of three Linwood Vikings
flashing the Viking hand sign. Deputies who did not conform
(12:22):
were punished. Lieutenant Walker Force was frequently harassed by the Vikings.
Deputy Kathy Kay recorded his personal car as stolen into
a county computer and said the driver of the vehicle
was armed and dangerous. According to court documents, Kay was
charged with making a false criminal report and ultimately acquitted.
(12:45):
During the trial, Forced testified that he received prank phone calls,
had the fender kicked off his car, and received a
Valentine's Day gift with a dead rat and side. He
also said that two deputies tried to run him down
in their car. In a separate police report, Force wrote
that two horses were dispatched to his house at three am.
(13:08):
Captain Burke Queva publicly pledged to phase out the Viking symbol.
When he arrived at the Linwood station in he started
by removing the Viking flag hanging inside and replaced it
with a flag representing the city of Lynwood, but the
new flag was promptly stolen. Other supervisory employees were harassed
by Vikings. Sergeant Pippin, a black man later inked as
(13:31):
a Viking, received a loaded handgun in the mail, rigged
to fire when the package opened. Sergeant Stan White allegedly
had dead dogs placed in the back of his car,
animal feces placed under the hood of his car, cow
tongues hung in his locker, and guns pulled on him.
When White was relocated outside of the Linwood station, one
(13:53):
Viking brag to reporter Sabrina Steel for the Press Telegram
that the gang had quote ran him out. Deputy Mike
Osborne's wife, Deputy Aurora Alonso Mulatto filed a damage claim
against l A County and the Sheriff's department, saying she
was harassed and forced out after reporting that her training officer,
Jeffrey Jones, planted narcotics on Black and Latina's suspects. Jones
(14:17):
was charged with falsifying police reports and pled no contest.
The month of Jones's arraignment, someone shot at Mulatto in
Osborne's home just before midnight while their kids were sleeping
in the rear bedrooms. Osborne told The Los Angeles Times
he suspected the involvement of renegade sheriff's deputies. Queva ordered
the transfer of alleged vikings, and four sued him for discrimination.
(14:42):
Quifford Yates, a deputy at the Linwood station during this time,
wrote about it in his book Deputy Thirty five Years
as a Deputy Sheriff from Upstate New York to l A.
He says, quote, five deputies, myself included, were advised that
we were being transferred out of the station, and we
sued to stop the transfers. That suit was eventually dismissed.
(15:05):
Yates says that they were eventually transferred to quote choice assignments,
and that he was promoted to sergeant. He declined to
be on this podcast, but describes his time in law
enforcement as quote, hunting for humans, It's a lot of fun.
(15:33):
The people of Lyndwood were tired of the continued abuse
and looked for help. Two families called up attorney George
Denny at the Police Misconduct Lawyer's Referral Service. David Lynn
heard about it later that day. I got two cases today,
both out of Lyndwood. One was the beating of Lloyd
Polk where they broke both of his arms and arrested him.
(15:56):
Twenty one year old Lloyd Polk or Stranger, was a
member of the local street gang Young Crowd, and had
already achieved the status of an o G. He wasn't
active in the streets anymore. He was working full time
and had settled down with his girlfriend, who was expecting
their first child. He was beaten by two deputies in
an alley and imprisoned for seventeen days. Private investigator David
(16:20):
Lynn went into the jail to meet him and with
Lloyd Polk um I went to jail, We got a
court order at photographed him, interviewed him, canvas the neighborhood
and I found this elderly woman who that to cross
the alley were the beating happened. And she said she
heard a noise outside and she went to the window
(16:41):
and there was a street lamp in the alley and
she saw she thought gang members beating this other guy.
She said, told her daughter, called the police at gangs
are are beating somebody out in the alley. Called the police.
And then she said one of guy's turn and she
saw the glint up his badge from the light, and
(17:03):
she goes, oh my god, it is the deafness. That
wasn't the only awful beating. And the other one was
William Leonard, a legally blind guy collecting cardboard in an alley.
They said, put up your hand, one year old, put
up your hands, get on your knees, get on the round,
put up your hands, put your hands behind your head,
just shouting different orders at him. And he's like he
(17:25):
didn't know what to do. And so they saw a
leather sheaf and somebody yelled gun and they all opened
up on him, shot thirty two times. They did like
a horseshoe around him. Um. I don't remember how many deputies,
but I remember most of them were Vikings, and this
guy's the Hatterard witness that she was right there. The
(17:48):
charges against Lloyd Polk were dismissed out of preliminary hearing,
and he was ready to take the Vikings down. He
teamed up with David Lynn to organize community members who
had been victimized by the Lynn Vikings. What did he
was a kind of guy. He knew the leadership of
all the other games and then with Bob Flats different gangs,
(18:10):
so he uh, told the other game or this guy
is cool. You didn't know what else to say, so
he kind of gave me a pass too to go
into these other neighborhoods, and they already knew who I was,
and they just started lining up telling me their stories.
So um, and then people in Lynnwood were young crowds, territory,
(18:34):
people who were not gang members, kids that were in
high school, no criminal offense, who were a beaten shot.
I think it told you we had an hundred twenty victims,
all happening within a three month period. So it was
just the wild West. The Vikings were on our rampage
that we just happened to come at the right time
(18:56):
to witness it right in the middle of it. The
people just started to line enough to hear that I
was in one house doing an interview, and it literally
started lining up the door to tell me their stores.
In September of ninety the lawyers at P M. L
r S. Compiled the accounts of abuse and filed a
class action civil rights suit in federal court. The press
(19:17):
was mostly skeptical of the lawsuit, but reporter Sabrina Steele
at the Long Beach Press Telegram took notice. She went
on to publish several articles detailing the Vikings abuse of
other deputies. David Lynn also published an op ed in
the paper comparing the Vikings antics to his time as
a marine in Vietnam. Because about one third of the
(19:38):
plaintiffs were members of local street gangs that were at war,
Lloyd Polk organized a meeting with representatives from each set
to work out a truce in December of The talks
were held at David Lynn's house and were a success,
but the night was quickly ruined. When Lloyd Polk got
back to his house, a car drove by and opened fire.
(20:00):
Witnesses ran to a deputy sitting around the corner with
his lights off. The deputy got out of the car,
walked back to it, and sat there. Lloyd died that night.
At Lloyd's funeral, David Lynne received a tip about the
murder from inside the department itself. A Nietra Haley was
a Sheriff's explorer at the time. The Explorer program is
(20:23):
billed as a career development for young adults. Haley said
that she overheard deputies Lloyd Luna and Jason Mann plotting
to kill Polk in a drive by shooting. David interviewed
her over a dozen times and her story never changed.
He was unsure of what to do next, so the
evidence was handed over to the FBI that nearly derailed
(20:45):
the lawsuit. After talking to FBI agents, Haley recanted the
Sheriff's department charge that David had forced her into implicating
the deputies. The FBI and U s. Attorney's Office began
a grand jury investigation in to David Lynne, which turned
up nothing. Gloria Clark, Polk's common law mother in law,
(21:06):
told reporters that Haley recanted her story because investigators threatened
to send her to prison for twenty six years if
any deputies were convicted. She pleaded guilty for charges of
providing false information to federal investigators and was sentenced to probation.
The lawyers pursuing the federal case released previously sealed audio
(21:27):
tapes and transcripts of Lynn's interviews with Haley, which corroborated
his account on them. Haley says she is frustrated that
her FBI handler ruined attempts to secretly record incriminating statements
from one of the deputies involved in the shooting. She
also told David that that same FBI agent was sexually
(21:48):
harassing her. The attorneys also issued a statement about the investigation,
saying it was a means to intimidate witnesses and discredit
their case. They said David, in his quote only crime
was naivete believing that the FBI would act in good
faith on information got Los Angeles Sheriff's deputies plotted and
(22:09):
carried out the shooting of a civil rights plaintiff. The
Vikings continued to terrorize local families. You started hearing things
from the community about like, you know, hey, if something
ever happens, like, don't call the cops. That's Francisco Frankie
Careo today, he's a father of three and commissioner for
the Los Angeles County Democratic Party. But just a few
(22:31):
years ago, his life was very different. I try to
come across as a regular guy, but the truth is
that I was Um, I was in prison. I'm an exonoree,
which basically means that I was wrongly convicted. Frankie served
more than twenty years for a murder he did not
commit in he was a sixteen year old high school student.
(22:53):
Frankie wasn't in a gang, but he was friends with
people who were. He was even related to a few,
specifically the Young Crowd gang and mostly Latina group in
the Linwood area. Being friendly with Young Crowd meant being stabbed,
shaken down, and profiled by police. It was a picture
that was snapped during a just like a random interaction
(23:13):
with the deputy and um, you know there we were
right our BMX is through Ham Park which is no
longer around, and um, you know we're riding. The cops
sort of pulls on the on the pathway and sorted
he slowed down, we slowed down, and next thing we know,
you just talking to a cop and and it went
(23:33):
from like you know, some basic just you know, police
tactics about hey, you know, where do you guys live?
You know, you have a girlfriend. You know, people are laughing.
You know, he's you know, building trust obviously, right, and
no one's no one's I mean, I'm not feeling like,
oh ship, like let's get out of here. That's run.
We just nob no one's committed a crime. Serverly, just
like we're just talking him to a cop. And the
(23:57):
course that the final question is like, do you mind
if I your picture to the group, And you know,
I'm sure we all looked at each other. Yeah, I
guess like you're the cop. Are are you asking permission?
Basically right, And so the guy gets out of his
out of the driver's seat and he goes into the
trunk and now this is polaroid time. He didn't know
it then, but that photo would go on to change
(24:17):
Frankie's life for the worst. Fifteen year old Damien Sarpy
was like Frankie, high school kid raised in Lynwood, too.
He was acquainted with the gang, the predominantly black neighborhood Crips.
That gang was in conflict with Frankie's friends in the
Young Crowd gang. On January, Damien was hanging out in
front of his house with a few friends. Around seven PM,
(24:41):
a car filled with Latino men drove by Donald Sarpy.
Damien's father came out and asked the group to head inside.
Moments later, the car came back and circled the block.
A person in the car yelled out something like fuck
and crowd and fired shots. Donald was struck and died.
The teenage boys who witnessed the shooting were badly shaken
(25:03):
up but cooperated with deputies. They were initially interviewed by telephone,
but couldn't remember many details. They agreed to go down
to the Linwood station around one am for another round
of interviews. One of the teens, Scott Turner, was interviewed
by Deputy Craig Ditch, a member of Lynwood's Operation Safe Streets,
(25:24):
the gang enforcement unit. Ditch was familiar with Turner, he
had provided the deputy with information in the past. Ditch
handed the teenager a book filled with photographs of potential
young crowd members. One of those photos the polaroid of Frankie,
and so that picture ultimately ended up in a in
a photo lineup that was used an investigation against me.
(25:47):
As Turner looked at the photos, Ditch provide a commentary
on each person. When Frankie's picture came up, digital turner
that he was probably the shooter, according to depositions. Six
days later, Frankie was arrested for the murder of Donald Sarpey.
I remember, you know, watching I felt like I was
watching The Simpsons or something. I was just watching TV
(26:09):
and I fell asape from the couch and I was
awakened by this like loud bang. Like the door was
like right by my, right by me, and it's like
the whole house was like shaking, you know, and they
couldn't get in. I'm like, dis going on. So I
looked at the window. I was sure enough as the
Sheriff's department and they're analysing sheriff's apartment. Let us in whatever,
(26:29):
And so I opened the door. I am like, I
felt like, you know, what the hell opened the door?
But I opened the door and they stormed in. And
what I remember was like the guy leading the charge
had a kind of like a VHS camcorder and he
walked and he started recording. You know. My dad came
out of his room and he and I were on
the floor and the living room floor, and my dad
(26:52):
looks at me, like what happened. I'm like, I don't know,
And so they ramsacked the entire entire place and at
the very end they handcuffed me. Frankie had an alibi
for the day of the shooting because of the dynamics
of my life. It was my father and myself and
my little brother. So you know, that hasn't been going
on for the last three or four years or longer.
(27:12):
You know, I get home and I'm doing laundry, or
I'm you know, voting clothes, or I'm you know, just
doing stuff that like you know, um, maybe society doesn't
think a young brown boy is gonna be doing because
like that's not what they do. That's a very stereotypical.
But that's that's what was happening. And I say it
because it was used against me in court, Like, yeah,
come on, you don't believe this guy was doing that.
(27:34):
That day, I called my mom was asking for a ride. Um. Ultimately,
I didn't leave the house until my dad took me
to work with him. The following days. We went to
bed very early, but that was it. It was like
a very simple like day at home. But the Sheriff's
department and the district attorney would not let up on
their version of it. I was in Linwood involved in
(27:55):
the drive by shooting that ultimately ended in Donald Sharpe's
death the day of my arrest. The crime happened six
days prior, so there's no confusion about the previous Friday.
Where were you this previous Friday? Well, I was at home. No, no,
you weren't. You know, so we got you. Of the
five teen witnesses, Turner was the only one who saw
the picture of Frankie, but by the time they got
(28:17):
to court, everyone identified him as the killer. The first
trial ended with a hung jury. Before the second, Turner
recanted and told prosecutors that his identification of Frankie was
a mistake. He was no longer willing to testify against him.
In June, Turner was in custody for an unrelated issue
(28:38):
and transported to court from a juvenile detention center. Frankie
approached him in the holding tank. There. I was waiting
for the the the chain the bus to arrive, and
I'm sitting down on the bench and I look over
and I'm like, is that fucking Scott Turner right there?
(28:58):
And I'm like, no, I camp him. He was he
hadn't either be there before I walked in, and his
head's down and I'm like, oh my god, it's him
and I and I and I'm like I was not
even thinking about it. I just like went over and
I sat right next to him and I said, hey,
are you Scott? And he ignored me and he are
(29:21):
you Scott Turner? And he looks at me. He's like, man,
you know, like, man, I'm I'm Libroy Jones. Man, what
do you like? He was like completely like trying to
scare me off, like no, man, that that's no like
that no. And I'm like, nah, so I don't. I'm
not trying to make a big you know, he's getting
a little bit loud. I don't want to trigger anybody
else to go, hey, what are you guys arguing about?
Or you know, black brown boys, you know, getting a
(29:41):
little loud here, and he sees it. I'm not like one,
am I trying to fight him, not attacking him, which
probably would be like the normal thing to do, like
here's the witness attack, you know whatever. I'm just like,
here's two two eight year old boys trying to like
figure out this mess that these adults that put us in,
and he said, no, I don't know. Yah, it's me man.
(30:01):
I'm Scott, like it's it's me man. And before I
can like, you know, he just continues and says, I'm
gonna fix this. Man. They made me lie. You know,
I didn't. I don't. I didn't want to come to court.
I didn't want to. They forced me, so you can
only imagine. So now I'm in custa for over a
year and a half at this point, and I'm like please, like,
(30:22):
you know, I don't know what what you're what plan
you have, but like tell someone, man that you're you've lied.
Frankie heard Turner making good on his word while he
was still in the tank. And there's like a little
gap underneath my door and I can hear some some
commotion and I and I, you know, get myself down
on that floor and I can hear um the d
a Marian escalante and she's like, don't be afraid. Scotty's
(30:45):
like like no, no, like you know what, like like
you're basically gonna funk my case up, Like what are
you doing? You know? And you can hear him saying
like Nope, I'm not like that's it. I'm not playing
along anymore. So it's like this whole thing and I'm
just in my You can only imagine, I'm like, you know,
super happy, like the guy was doing the right thing.
Turner's honesty didn't help. They spun that like, oh the
(31:06):
guy scared, you know, Frankie, thread numb and all this stuff.
So he did testify that it wasn't me that he
had he had been lying all along. But by this
point there was these other five boys that they were
still using, you know, and what happened to be the
victims Son, Damion and so um. They lost one, they
lost a star, but they had this whole team of
(31:27):
guys still willn't to stify against me. David Lynne was
at the courthouse that day. Frankie's attorney asked that Lynn
accompany him to observe in a deposition. Lynn stated that
when Turner recanted his prior testimony, Ditch responded by threatening him.
Ditch said, quote, no more breaks if you get arrested
(31:47):
in Lynnwood. David Lynn also testified that as he and
Ditch left the holding area, Ditch stated, quote, I'll tune
him up in reference to Turner, meaning he would beat him.
Even though Ditch was a gang detective, he was in
a gang himself. Deputy Ditch was very eager to admit
(32:08):
that he was a Viking. You know, you know, there
was no like, no, I've never heard of the Vikings.
I don't what you're talking about them. I'm a Viking,
like proud of it. The Vikings violence on the streets continued.
(32:35):
On May seven, four year old Josaneves was shot in
the back during a botched raid. Neaves was a witness,
so one of the incidents documented in the federal lawsuit.
There were three or four other experienced UH civil rights lawyers,
lawyers that Hugh had trained and brought along over the
(32:57):
years after the establishment of the Police Misconduct Lawyer Referral Service.
Carol and her team were up against highly paid private
attorneys representing l A County, and they embarked on a
strategy of trying to bury us in paper, and they
came close. I mean, the paper was unbelievable. Of course,
(33:21):
they were earning big dollars during all of this. We
rented a huge room with shelves with notebooks, you know,
four walls of notebooks of paper. Carol was in charge
of discovery for the entire case. It involved me receiving
(33:43):
it and distributing it to the various lawyers. The way
we had organized ourselves was each lawyer would take several
one or more clients and represent them and if there
was a criminal case, they do the criminal case, and
then they would represent them in the civil rights case.
(34:07):
And these lawyers, most of them except for this core group,
had never done this before, and they were very lax
about deadlines. I was constantly on the phone multiple times
for each of these lawyers, for each of their clients,
(34:27):
for each set of discovery, for every deposition. You have
to do this, you have to get this in, you
have to have your clients sign. It was just it
was a nightmare. It was really a nightmare um and
they would miss deadlines and we would get sanctioned and
we had no money. But it got to the point
(34:48):
where I didn't want to go into the office because
there would be a ream of paper sitting on my desk.
It was the hardest thing I've ever gone through in
my life. I have never been so depressed. For so long,
the odds seemed stacked against the p MLR S team.
In the courtroom, we had a magistrate judge who seemed
(35:10):
to be dazzled by defense council. She was this pretty
blonde woman and she'd go in court and twinkle at him,
and he would sanction our negligent failure to comply by
the correct date and ignore their deliberate refusal to have
(35:35):
someone show up for a deposition. So, you know, it
was very, very frustrating. It was very very frustrating. Despite
the difficulties, the plants of attorneys asked for big changes
to be made to the Sheriff's department in their lawsuit
in an injunction. The judge that was assigned to the case,
Terry Hatter, seemed open to hear what they had to say.
(35:56):
Hatter was black from the South Side of Chicago and
no stranger. It's a police misconduct. One of the things,
and this was huge idea, was to have a monitor
appointed to oversee the daily operations of the sheriff department.
(36:17):
We were attacking the Vikings and had here made a
finding that they were a neo Nazi white supremacist group,
which they were. HOWD granted the injunction and l A
County and its attorneys were not happy. Then Sheriff Sherman
Block told the Los Angeles Times, how does assessment of
the Vikings was quote irrational and wrong. The county appealed
(36:41):
and the injunction was reversed at the Ninth Circuit Court
of Appeals. Who were really disappointed and felt that we
had had a very solid case. So at that point
we just proceeded on with the individual cases, litigating the
(37:02):
individual cases, doing depositions, defending depositions, serving discovery requests, responding
to discovery requests, getting sanctioned every time one of our
lawyers would blow a deadline. The case was only a
class action because of the injunction. Now the Lynwood team
(37:22):
had to move forward with the cases individually. The reversal
also meant that all of the evidence of the racist
vikings deputy gang could not be used at trial. You know,
it was an opportunity to educate the community. This case
was being watched nationwide, you know, and so to be
(37:44):
deprived of that opportunity to expose this it had never
been exposed before, So yeah, I was that was a
big blow. Carol took over as the lead council. She
says that she loved doing the trials, but there were
a few we are things that happened during the litigation.
Shortly before the trial was supposed to start, I came
(38:08):
into the office one day and the phones weren't rain
I mean the phones are always rained. I mean it
was a busy office. I mean we had I had
a practice. We had a practice going on besides Lyndwood Um,
and the phones weren't ring, like about ten o'clock or's.
I didn't noticed, and so I picked up the phone
(38:32):
and there's no dial tone. So I went to one
of our office mate's phone and called the phone company,
what's going on? And the woman said, you called us
and told us to disconnect the phones because you were
going to be in Europe for several months, and that
(38:52):
was supposedly we had a password. I said, well, I'm
sure you asked for a password. Um no, so there
won't be a reconnect shin Fee. I don't know who
did that. I don't know how why that happened. Who
would do that other than these mean people. Carol won
(39:12):
the first trial, which was the case of Darren Thomas
and his friends. The jury awarded the men six hundred
and eleven thousand dollars the county chose to settle the
remaining cases in seven and a half million dollars, which
is worth about double today, was awarded to eighty plaintiffs.
One point five million was earmarked for the quote special
(39:35):
training of deputies. The sheriff's department was also required to
have a computerized use of force tracking system up and
running by the following March to identify bad deputies. The
settlement also extended the term of Special Counsel Merrick bob
who monitored the department for the l A County Board
of Supervisors. County attorneys estimated that if the case went
(39:57):
to trial, fees and damages could go up to eighteen
point nine million dollars. Sheriff Sherman Block told The l
A Times that the settlement was partly quote a business decision.
County supervisors echoed that sentiment. Gloria Molina of the first
District said, quote this was a terrible situation, but I
(40:17):
think the sheriff can say we no longer have that
situation going on. Supervisor zev Yaroslovski of District three said
that the settlement was quote better than rolling the dice
and going to court and risking an outcome that's worse,
just like Sheriff Alex Vandeueva. After him, Sheriff Block said
that he believed the Vikings were a social organization and
(40:40):
there is no proof they took action against people of color.
He also said he didn't believe the group existed anymore.
You know, that's typical. They're not going to come clean
with actual feelings about there might be something wrong. You
know that, actually, maybe we need to do something to
correct this. I didn't expect that. And him saying that
(41:05):
it is just living up to expectations, living down to expectations. Yeah,
you just have to shrug this stuff off. It's just predictable.
The Los Angeles Times and the media, I don't know
if they put those words in his mouth or if
the words came from the sheriff's Originally Block Block used
(41:28):
to call them social groups, but the Only Times would
always report them as clicks. They are not clicks. That's
such a harmless euphemism. Um, they're gangs. They're violent people,
and they do harm their territorial and they're power hungry
and they abuse their power. Why does no one seem
(41:52):
to want to take accountability for this issue? Probably a
couple of things. One is it reveals the weakness and
ineptness of leadership the administration, and also possibly because of
(42:15):
the power behind these gangs. Frankie Carrillo was eventually convicted
of murder as well as multiple counts of attempted murder.
The sentence made five years to life plus a five
year game enhancement for the murder of Noland Sarpy, and
and then the consecutive six life sentences for all the
(42:36):
other witnesses who were there that victim slash witnesses who
testified against me. So it was a total of I
guess thirty years plus seven life sentences that ran a concurrent,
So you haven't sort of finished one before you started
the other one. David Lynn wasn't convinced and kept hunting
for details about the real killer of Donald Sarpy. He
(42:59):
got his answer from a young Crowd gang member in
a deposition. David City found Oscar Rodriguez at home one
afternoon in December. David asked Rodriguez to talk to him
about Frankie's case, and the two of them headed off
in David's car to the crime scene. On that drive,
Rodriguez confessed to the murder and said he would testify
(43:20):
to such. The next day, David took Rodriguez to court.
Rodriguez Is previous attorney told the court that Frankie was
not present during the murder. The judge denied a proposed
a layer of the sentencing. Frankie received one life sentence
and a second sentence of thirty years to life to run, consecutively,
reducing his chances of parole to zero. When I was
(43:43):
in Fulsome prison, I had reached a point where I
felt that I had done everything that I can do,
Like I had had reached whatever whatever whoever can write
whatever a petition, I can you know submit all the
screaming and kicking, and so one was like that was
like what else? What what do I do next? For
of teen years, Frankie insisted on his innocence and wrote
(44:03):
letters to private attorneys, the A C. L U of
Southern California, the California Office of the Inspector General, and
the Innocence projects in California and New York. It took
two decades, but he eventually got help. Tony Carter, who
was a teacher of Fulsome prison. You know, I give
her a lot of credit and What had happened was
(44:24):
that Tony had been a teacher there for twenty years
and it was her time for her time to retire.
I'm like stumbling right, I'm like and she's like yeah,
Like I'm like, you know, Tony, you you know you've
proof read my letters. You know my my plight. Um,
would you do me a favor? And you know, now
that you're retired, if you come across a lawyer, a reporter,
anyone who you think would be interested in my story,
(44:46):
would you like just share it with them? In lo
and Behold. About six months after the conversation, in Sacramento County,
or in Sacramento near where fulsome prison is, she happened
to be at an event and at that of event,
um it became like Q and a time, And there
was a woman there who stood up and said, you know,
(45:07):
my name is Ellen Eggers. I'm a lawyer. And so
Tony was in the room says, oh lawyer. Huh. So
at some point they they chatted and Tony was like, hey,
you know, um, like there's this guy that I know,
you know, it's you know, this my former you know,
Clark whatever and a Bosom prison, like do you mind
(45:27):
if I if I share some information with you about
his case, and UM, long story short, Ellen agreed, and
so she she like was intrigued with Maybe the fact
that like, as a former staff member was sort of
vouching for me was maybe the initial sort of wave
of like, yeah, maybe I should look into this. Ellen
Eggers and her team spent the next five years of
(45:49):
their spare time working on Coreo's case. They were trying
to get Frankie a brit of Habeas corpus, a process
that allows incarcerated people to report unlawful imprisonment. At Frankie's
habeas hearing, five out of the six witnesses recanted their
original testimony, while the sixth invoked his Fifth Amendment right
(46:10):
against self incrimination. After a week long evidentiary hearing, Frankie's
request was granted and his sentence was vacated. The l
A District Attorney's office did not appeal the ruling, nor
did they attempt to refile charges. Frankie Carrillo was released
from custody on March sixth, two eleven, after over twenty
(46:33):
years of incarceration based on a lie, but the vikings
were on the residence of Lynwood wasn't over. The lawsuit
wasn't going to stop them, The damages didn't change their salaries,
and all of them had been cleared from his conduct.
Several had actually been promoted and were in a perfect
position to train the next generation of deputy gangs that's
(46:56):
coming up next week. I used to have a lowd
the whole hood. No fuck the police. I'm a fucking
hood trophy. Better keep a pistol in the field with
the ship. Keep our automatic recognized golf SHIPOD you've been
(47:21):
listening to a tradition of violence. The history of reputy
gangs in the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department posted an
executive produced by series Castle music by Yellow Hill and Steels.
For breaking news and updates and deputy gangs, follow at
L A s D. Gains on social media. The support
series is reporting and for exclusive bonus content, subscribe to
the L s D Games Patriot
Morning. This podcast contains explicit language and details acts of violence.
Listener discretion is advised. The streets were becoming more dangerous
than Lynwood, deputies at the Linwood station began using their
own gang theme nickname for the station, LVS twenty five
or Lynwood Vario Station twenty five. Viking spray painted walls
(00:24):
and power poles around the city with the tag to
mark what they saw as their turf. Two deputies reported
seeing LVS twenty five carved into patrol vehicles. The Vikings
even adopted street lango and started calling members of the
gang Homeboys and long time officers o g s. Everyone
at the Linwood station knew about the Vikings. Most people
(00:47):
went along with it because if you didn't, you could
be killed. Racism was also on full display. A group
of Vikings who covered the early morning shift called themselves
O G c F or, an acronym for original Gangster
crime Fighter that later came to incorporate a Spanish language
slur for black people. The Los Angeles Times reported that
(01:10):
the Linwood station had a quote map of Linwood in
the shape of Africa, racist cartoons of black men, and
a mock ticket to Africa on the wall An, anonymous
Viking told the Long Beach Press Telegram that quote, it's
the neighborhood, the environment, what we're up against that makes
us vikings. You have to have a strong idea out
(01:31):
there because of the minority element. It's like a war.
This is a tradition of violence, a history of deputy
gangs inside the Los Angeles County Sheriff's departments et gangs. Look,
(01:59):
let's not. And that's when the Lieutenant Roger Clark came
face to face with a Viking while he was acting
(02:19):
captain at the Crescenta Valley station. I get a call
from Bob Edmunds, You're going to get Deputy Armstrong as
a prisoner, and I go okay. Robert Armstrong was a
deputy who shot pregnant two year old to Lois Young twice.
She was hit once in the chest and once in
the stomach. One of the bullets had her unborn son
(02:41):
in the head, killing him. Now, all I knew is
that Armstrong had been involved in a shooting and he
had been prosecuted, and then he gets sentenced to county time,
not stay prison. That's all I knew. Armstrong didn't serve
his time in a county jail facility. Instead, he was
(03:01):
housed at the Crescenta Valley station as what's called a
trustee Contingent. Trustees are incarcerated people with records of good
behavior who are selected to perform things like janitorial services
at local stations. So I go through all the other trustees,
you know, make sure I have a job for him.
(03:22):
He's going to paint the he's gonna he is going
to run the crew that's going to paint the basement.
I made a point of talking to him every single day,
take his temperature. So eventually he tells me what happened,
and I'm just stunned. And the story is he starts out,
you know, in the jail so and all he wanted
(03:43):
to do is really be a good deputy. That's it.
He goes to UH Santa Candalina. Then he winds up
in Lynwood and he's gets recruited by lieutenant who I know,
Dennis Locum. I knew him, worked with him. I couldn't
believe he did this, But he started this group of
(04:04):
guys on early morning to go out and take care
of business and gave him card launch So they'll support
you anything you do. The group that Armstrong had been
recruited into the Linwood Vikings gang. Well, and it started
out stealing money from what they consider crooks, uh, fabricating
police reports, using force, blah blah blah okay, and bending
(04:28):
all the rules. Well, as you know, if you want
to get into a house, you got to have a
search warrant right or or an emergency. So he gets
transferred to Temple Station, which is a totally different division.
And Temple's got a problem a house that's selling narcotics.
Everybody knows it, and they turn it over to Narcotics
(04:51):
to handle. And the way you do it is you
get an undercover, you know, mark money and do some
buys and hit it with the search warrant. Everybody goes
to jail. And it wasn't moving fast enough for the guys,
and they start complaining about it. Armstrong had an idea,
and he's early mornings. They're sitting around complaining and Armstrong says, well, hell,
(05:16):
if we were in Lynwood, we'd take care of this ourselves.
And the guys say, well, what are you talking about?
He said, We'll watch this. So he goes this is
days of the pay phone, you know, goes to a paystation,
calls the station and says, I am anonymous, I lived
next door to He gives the address. Then Armstrong started
to lie, something very very terrible is going on down there.
(05:36):
In fact, it sounds like someone's getting killed. You'd better
send somebody, and he walks back to the car. He says,
we're going to get the call. The station received the
call for service and routed it back to Armstrong's car
and call comes in an unknown trouble, Da da da
dad the address. Now his plan is I'm going to
the house. I'm gonna kick that door, going to toss
(05:58):
the house and say that the dope, the money, the
scales and everything's on the coffee table as we come in,
and people are screaming for help when we arrive, just
as we as we reported to us. But when he
gets there, it's all quiet. Of course, he doesn't realize
that the guy who's selling the dope takes his product
and money away and leaves his pregnant girlfriend behind and
(06:22):
gives her a inoperable caliber rifle to wave that guys
to chase him away. So when Armstrong arrives, all quiet right,
goes to the door, tries to kick the door doors reinforced,
can't get through. She hears it, thinks it's a disgrintled
customer opens the door with the rifle, he shoots her.
(06:46):
Roger was horrified. I hear this story, I said, Robert,
tell me this is not true. Robert takes his leg,
rolls up, his points to the tattoo, and I go,
stay there, thank you very much. I run to my office,
(07:07):
pick up the phone, call my my chain of command,
Commander Hanky. So, for God's sakes, get down here with
a tape recorder and an internal affairs You've got to
hear this story. At that point I hear from him.
The department knows all about it. So that was the
one and only time I thought I was going to
throw up in my entire career. Community residents were frequently
(07:31):
brutalized by racist vikings. There are literally hundreds of examples.
On October, Dimitrio Carrio stopped to speak to a woman
receiving a citation from a deputy sheriff. Deputies Elizabeth Smith
and Anthony Campbell beat Cario too and called him racial slurs.
(07:52):
He was charged with resisting arrest, but was acquitted at trial.
February eleven, ex deputies arrested Fernando Martinez and shoved his
head into the patrol vehicle window until it cracked, and
refused to give him medical attention. Two blocks away, Vikings
dragged two men off of their front porch and beat
(08:14):
them with flashlights. The men were initially allowed to leave
after the beating, but after a neighbor complained, one was
taken to the hospital and arrested. Four days later, February,
four black men gathered at an auto shop were beaten
by Vikings. The deputies also tore apart the shop and
(08:34):
held guns to the heads of two of the men.
On March first, the Vikings carried out six botched raids.
Several Latina families, including young children, elderly and disabled people,
were held at gunpoint. Several people were taken into custody
and beaten. Two groups of Vikings unlawfully detained a Latina
(08:54):
family of seven On March fo one pregnant woman was
assaulted and an eighty two year old grandmother was held
at gunpoint as she lay in bed. On April thirteen,
Vikings arrested Raoul Gonzalez or attempted robbery and beat him,
then imprisoned him for several days. The next day, a
(09:16):
Viking arrested Jess Melendres and beat him in the back
of their patrol car while he was handcuffed. Then they
brought Melendre's inside of their station, handcuffed him to a
swivel chair, and continued beating him. Fernando Martinez, whose head
was shoved into the patrol car window, was arrested again
on April fifteenth, nine and driven recklessly while handcuffed, causing
(09:41):
his head to smash into the metal partition separating the
front and back seats of the vehicle. Once Martinez arrived
at the station, deputies beat, choked, and kicked him. Two
days later, Salvador Presciato and Raphael Ochoa were arrested and beaten.
One deputy shoved the loaded revolver into a Choa's mouth
(10:01):
and told him, quote, every time you see us, we
are going to funk with you, and just three days later,
nine deputies stopped Presciato and Ochoa again. Presciato was kept
in a dark cell and beaten, while a Choa's house
was rated without a warrant. Two weeks later, Vikings attacked
Darren Thomas Michael Sterling, Kevin Marshall, and William Scott, all black.
(10:27):
While they stood in their yard. Deputies drove recklessly on
the ways to the station, causing the men to fall
on the vehicle's hard surfaces. Once they arrived, they were
taken to a trailer in the station's parking lot used
by deputies assigned to the gangs and beaten. Deputies used
racial slurs as they continually pummeled the men. Darren Thomas
(10:48):
was kicked in the face, choked into unconsciousness twice, and
electrocuted with a taser. One deputy held a shotgun to
Darren's head. Darren was charged with battery on an oficer
and prosecuted, despite the fact that he was compliant and
did nothing wrong. One year later, the charges were dismissed
in a mistrial. On May five, deputies shot and killed
(11:13):
fifteen year old Lawrence Johnson. One week later, two Viking
associates opened fire on an unarmed Tracy Bats, who survived
the shooting. A few weeks later, deputies tried to kill
Tracy again. They shot him in the right leg and
set an attack dog on the injury. Later that month,
Vikings beat Ron Dalton Eric Jones and Marcello Gonzalez. One
(11:37):
of the deputies shoved a loaded revolver into Dalton's mouth
and threatened to blow his head off. Another deputy put
a gun to gonzalez head and pulled the trigger, but
the gun did not fire. On Elze Coleman was chased
down and shot by Deputy Paul Archimbald, who falsified evidence
(11:58):
in the investigation of the in it. Coleman was initially
charged with brandishing a gun, but acquitted. The Vikings and
their brutal style of policing were co signed by the
deputy's union. The August issue of the Association of Los
Angeles Deputy Sheriffs printed a photo of three Linwood Vikings
flashing the Viking hand sign. Deputies who did not conform
(12:22):
were punished. Lieutenant Walker Force was frequently harassed by the Vikings.
Deputy Kathy Kay recorded his personal car as stolen into
a county computer and said the driver of the vehicle
was armed and dangerous. According to court documents, Kay was
charged with making a false criminal report and ultimately acquitted.
(12:45):
During the trial, Forced testified that he received prank phone calls,
had the fender kicked off his car, and received a
Valentine's Day gift with a dead rat and side. He
also said that two deputies tried to run him down
in their car. In a separate police report, Force wrote
that two horses were dispatched to his house at three am.
(13:08):
Captain Burke Queva publicly pledged to phase out the Viking symbol.
When he arrived at the Linwood station in he started
by removing the Viking flag hanging inside and replaced it
with a flag representing the city of Lynwood, but the
new flag was promptly stolen. Other supervisory employees were harassed
by Vikings. Sergeant Pippin, a black man later inked as
(13:31):
a Viking, received a loaded handgun in the mail, rigged
to fire when the package opened. Sergeant Stan White allegedly
had dead dogs placed in the back of his car,
animal feces placed under the hood of his car, cow
tongues hung in his locker, and guns pulled on him.
When White was relocated outside of the Linwood station, one
(13:53):
Viking brag to reporter Sabrina Steel for the Press Telegram
that the gang had quote ran him out. Deputy Mike
Osborne's wife, Deputy Aurora Alonso Mulatto filed a damage claim
against l A County and the Sheriff's department, saying she
was harassed and forced out after reporting that her training officer,
Jeffrey Jones, planted narcotics on Black and Latina's suspects. Jones
(14:17):
was charged with falsifying police reports and pled no contest.
The month of Jones's arraignment, someone shot at Mulatto in
Osborne's home just before midnight while their kids were sleeping
in the rear bedrooms. Osborne told The Los Angeles Times
he suspected the involvement of renegade sheriff's deputies. Queva ordered
the transfer of alleged vikings, and four sued him for discrimination.
(14:42):
Quifford Yates, a deputy at the Linwood station during this time,
wrote about it in his book Deputy Thirty five Years
as a Deputy Sheriff from Upstate New York to l A.
He says, quote, five deputies, myself included, were advised that
we were being transferred out of the station, and we
sued to stop the transfers. That suit was eventually dismissed.
(15:05):
Yates says that they were eventually transferred to quote choice assignments,
and that he was promoted to sergeant. He declined to
be on this podcast, but describes his time in law
enforcement as quote, hunting for humans, It's a lot of fun.
(15:33):
The people of Lyndwood were tired of the continued abuse
and looked for help. Two families called up attorney George
Denny at the Police Misconduct Lawyer's Referral Service. David Lynn
heard about it later that day. I got two cases today,
both out of Lyndwood. One was the beating of Lloyd
Polk where they broke both of his arms and arrested him.
(15:56):
Twenty one year old Lloyd Polk or Stranger, was a
member of the local street gang Young Crowd, and had
already achieved the status of an o G. He wasn't
active in the streets anymore. He was working full time
and had settled down with his girlfriend, who was expecting
their first child. He was beaten by two deputies in
an alley and imprisoned for seventeen days. Private investigator David
(16:20):
Lynn went into the jail to meet him and with
Lloyd Polk um I went to jail, We got a
court order at photographed him, interviewed him, canvas the neighborhood
and I found this elderly woman who that to cross
the alley were the beating happened. And she said she
heard a noise outside and she went to the window
(16:41):
and there was a street lamp in the alley and
she saw she thought gang members beating this other guy.
She said, told her daughter, called the police at gangs
are are beating somebody out in the alley. Called the police.
And then she said one of guy's turn and she
saw the glint up his badge from the light, and
(17:03):
she goes, oh my god, it is the deafness. That
wasn't the only awful beating. And the other one was
William Leonard, a legally blind guy collecting cardboard in an alley.
They said, put up your hand, one year old, put
up your hands, get on your knees, get on the round,
put up your hands, put your hands behind your head,
just shouting different orders at him. And he's like he
(17:25):
didn't know what to do. And so they saw a
leather sheaf and somebody yelled gun and they all opened
up on him, shot thirty two times. They did like
a horseshoe around him. Um. I don't remember how many deputies,
but I remember most of them were Vikings, and this
guy's the Hatterard witness that she was right there. The
(17:48):
charges against Lloyd Polk were dismissed out of preliminary hearing,
and he was ready to take the Vikings down. He
teamed up with David Lynn to organize community members who
had been victimized by the Lynn Vikings. What did he
was a kind of guy. He knew the leadership of
all the other games and then with Bob Flats different gangs,
(18:10):
so he uh, told the other game or this guy
is cool. You didn't know what else to say, so
he kind of gave me a pass too to go
into these other neighborhoods, and they already knew who I was,
and they just started lining up telling me their stories.
So um, and then people in Lynnwood were young crowds, territory,
(18:34):
people who were not gang members, kids that were in
high school, no criminal offense, who were a beaten shot.
I think it told you we had an hundred twenty victims,
all happening within a three month period. So it was
just the wild West. The Vikings were on our rampage
that we just happened to come at the right time
(18:56):
to witness it right in the middle of it. The
people just started to line enough to hear that I
was in one house doing an interview, and it literally
started lining up the door to tell me their stores.
In September of ninety the lawyers at P M. L
r S. Compiled the accounts of abuse and filed a
class action civil rights suit in federal court. The press
(19:17):
was mostly skeptical of the lawsuit, but reporter Sabrina Steele
at the Long Beach Press Telegram took notice. She went
on to publish several articles detailing the Vikings abuse of
other deputies. David Lynn also published an op ed in
the paper comparing the Vikings antics to his time as
a marine in Vietnam. Because about one third of the
(19:38):
plaintiffs were members of local street gangs that were at war,
Lloyd Polk organized a meeting with representatives from each set
to work out a truce in December of The talks
were held at David Lynn's house and were a success,
but the night was quickly ruined. When Lloyd Polk got
back to his house, a car drove by and opened fire.
(20:00):
Witnesses ran to a deputy sitting around the corner with
his lights off. The deputy got out of the car,
walked back to it, and sat there. Lloyd died that night.
At Lloyd's funeral, David Lynne received a tip about the
murder from inside the department itself. A Nietra Haley was
a Sheriff's explorer at the time. The Explorer program is
(20:23):
billed as a career development for young adults. Haley said
that she overheard deputies Lloyd Luna and Jason Mann plotting
to kill Polk in a drive by shooting. David interviewed
her over a dozen times and her story never changed.
He was unsure of what to do next, so the
evidence was handed over to the FBI that nearly derailed
(20:45):
the lawsuit. After talking to FBI agents, Haley recanted the
Sheriff's department charge that David had forced her into implicating
the deputies. The FBI and U s. Attorney's Office began
a grand jury investigation in to David Lynne, which turned
up nothing. Gloria Clark, Polk's common law mother in law,
(21:06):
told reporters that Haley recanted her story because investigators threatened
to send her to prison for twenty six years if
any deputies were convicted. She pleaded guilty for charges of
providing false information to federal investigators and was sentenced to probation.
The lawyers pursuing the federal case released previously sealed audio
(21:27):
tapes and transcripts of Lynn's interviews with Haley, which corroborated
his account on them. Haley says she is frustrated that
her FBI handler ruined attempts to secretly record incriminating statements
from one of the deputies involved in the shooting. She
also told David that that same FBI agent was sexually
(21:48):
harassing her. The attorneys also issued a statement about the investigation,
saying it was a means to intimidate witnesses and discredit
their case. They said David, in his quote only crime
was naivete believing that the FBI would act in good
faith on information got Los Angeles Sheriff's deputies plotted and
(22:09):
carried out the shooting of a civil rights plaintiff. The
Vikings continued to terrorize local families. You started hearing things
from the community about like, you know, hey, if something
ever happens, like, don't call the cops. That's Francisco Frankie
Careo today, he's a father of three and commissioner for
the Los Angeles County Democratic Party. But just a few
(22:31):
years ago, his life was very different. I try to
come across as a regular guy, but the truth is
that I was Um, I was in prison. I'm an exonoree,
which basically means that I was wrongly convicted. Frankie served
more than twenty years for a murder he did not
commit in he was a sixteen year old high school student.
(22:53):
Frankie wasn't in a gang, but he was friends with
people who were. He was even related to a few,
specifically the Young Crowd gang and mostly Latina group in
the Linwood area. Being friendly with Young Crowd meant being stabbed,
shaken down, and profiled by police. It was a picture
that was snapped during a just like a random interaction
(23:13):
with the deputy and um, you know there we were
right our BMX is through Ham Park which is no
longer around, and um, you know we're riding. The cops
sort of pulls on the on the pathway and sorted
he slowed down, we slowed down, and next thing we know,
you just talking to a cop and and it went
(23:33):
from like you know, some basic just you know, police
tactics about hey, you know, where do you guys live?
You know, you have a girlfriend. You know, people are laughing.
You know, he's you know, building trust obviously, right, and
no one's no one's I mean, I'm not feeling like,
oh ship, like let's get out of here. That's run.
We just nob no one's committed a crime. Serverly, just
like we're just talking him to a cop. And the
(23:57):
course that the final question is like, do you mind
if I your picture to the group, And you know,
I'm sure we all looked at each other. Yeah, I
guess like you're the cop. Are are you asking permission?
Basically right, And so the guy gets out of his
out of the driver's seat and he goes into the
trunk and now this is polaroid time. He didn't know
it then, but that photo would go on to change
(24:17):
Frankie's life for the worst. Fifteen year old Damien Sarpy
was like Frankie, high school kid raised in Lynwood, too.
He was acquainted with the gang, the predominantly black neighborhood Crips.
That gang was in conflict with Frankie's friends in the
Young Crowd gang. On January, Damien was hanging out in
front of his house with a few friends. Around seven PM,
(24:41):
a car filled with Latino men drove by Donald Sarpy.
Damien's father came out and asked the group to head inside.
Moments later, the car came back and circled the block.
A person in the car yelled out something like fuck
and crowd and fired shots. Donald was struck and died.
The teenage boys who witnessed the shooting were badly shaken
(25:03):
up but cooperated with deputies. They were initially interviewed by telephone,
but couldn't remember many details. They agreed to go down
to the Linwood station around one am for another round
of interviews. One of the teens, Scott Turner, was interviewed
by Deputy Craig Ditch, a member of Lynwood's Operation Safe Streets,
(25:24):
the gang enforcement unit. Ditch was familiar with Turner, he
had provided the deputy with information in the past. Ditch
handed the teenager a book filled with photographs of potential
young crowd members. One of those photos the polaroid of Frankie,
and so that picture ultimately ended up in a in
a photo lineup that was used an investigation against me.
(25:47):
As Turner looked at the photos, Ditch provide a commentary
on each person. When Frankie's picture came up, digital turner
that he was probably the shooter, according to depositions. Six
days later, Frankie was arrested for the murder of Donald Sarpey.
I remember, you know, watching I felt like I was
watching The Simpsons or something. I was just watching TV
(26:09):
and I fell asape from the couch and I was
awakened by this like loud bang. Like the door was
like right by my, right by me, and it's like
the whole house was like shaking, you know, and they
couldn't get in. I'm like, dis going on. So I
looked at the window. I was sure enough as the
Sheriff's department and they're analysing sheriff's apartment. Let us in whatever,
(26:29):
And so I opened the door. I am like, I
felt like, you know, what the hell opened the door?
But I opened the door and they stormed in. And
what I remember was like the guy leading the charge
had a kind of like a VHS camcorder and he
walked and he started recording. You know. My dad came
out of his room and he and I were on
the floor and the living room floor, and my dad
(26:52):
looks at me, like what happened. I'm like, I don't know,
And so they ramsacked the entire entire place and at
the very end they handcuffed me. Frankie had an alibi
for the day of the shooting because of the dynamics
of my life. It was my father and myself and
my little brother. So you know, that hasn't been going
on for the last three or four years or longer.
(27:12):
You know, I get home and I'm doing laundry, or
I'm you know, voting clothes, or I'm you know, just
doing stuff that like you know, um, maybe society doesn't
think a young brown boy is gonna be doing because
like that's not what they do. That's a very stereotypical.
But that's that's what was happening. And I say it
because it was used against me in court, Like, yeah,
come on, you don't believe this guy was doing that.
(27:34):
That day, I called my mom was asking for a ride. Um. Ultimately,
I didn't leave the house until my dad took me
to work with him. The following days. We went to
bed very early, but that was it. It was like
a very simple like day at home. But the Sheriff's
department and the district attorney would not let up on
their version of it. I was in Linwood involved in
(27:55):
the drive by shooting that ultimately ended in Donald Sharpe's
death the day of my arrest. The crime happened six
days prior, so there's no confusion about the previous Friday.
Where were you this previous Friday? Well, I was at home. No, no,
you weren't. You know, so we got you. Of the
five teen witnesses, Turner was the only one who saw
the picture of Frankie, but by the time they got
(28:17):
to court, everyone identified him as the killer. The first
trial ended with a hung jury. Before the second, Turner
recanted and told prosecutors that his identification of Frankie was
a mistake. He was no longer willing to testify against him.
In June, Turner was in custody for an unrelated issue
(28:38):
and transported to court from a juvenile detention center. Frankie
approached him in the holding tank. There. I was waiting
for the the the chain the bus to arrive, and
I'm sitting down on the bench and I look over
and I'm like, is that fucking Scott Turner right there?
(28:58):
And I'm like, no, I camp him. He was he
hadn't either be there before I walked in, and his
head's down and I'm like, oh my god, it's him
and I and I and I'm like I was not
even thinking about it. I just like went over and
I sat right next to him and I said, hey,
are you Scott? And he ignored me and he are
(29:21):
you Scott Turner? And he looks at me. He's like, man,
you know, like, man, I'm I'm Libroy Jones. Man, what
do you like? He was like completely like trying to
scare me off, like no, man, that that's no like
that no. And I'm like, nah, so I don't. I'm
not trying to make a big you know, he's getting
a little bit loud. I don't want to trigger anybody
else to go, hey, what are you guys arguing about?
Or you know, black brown boys, you know, getting a
(29:41):
little loud here, and he sees it. I'm not like one,
am I trying to fight him, not attacking him, which
probably would be like the normal thing to do, like
here's the witness attack, you know whatever. I'm just like,
here's two two eight year old boys trying to like
figure out this mess that these adults that put us in,
and he said, no, I don't know. Yah, it's me man.
(30:01):
I'm Scott, like it's it's me man. And before I
can like, you know, he just continues and says, I'm
gonna fix this. Man. They made me lie. You know,
I didn't. I don't. I didn't want to come to court.
I didn't want to. They forced me, so you can
only imagine. So now I'm in custa for over a
year and a half at this point, and I'm like please, like,
(30:22):
you know, I don't know what what you're what plan
you have, but like tell someone, man that you're you've lied.
Frankie heard Turner making good on his word while he
was still in the tank. And there's like a little
gap underneath my door and I can hear some some
commotion and I and I, you know, get myself down
on that floor and I can hear um the d
a Marian escalante and she's like, don't be afraid. Scotty's
(30:45):
like like no, no, like you know what, like like
you're basically gonna funk my case up, Like what are
you doing? You know? And you can hear him saying
like Nope, I'm not like that's it. I'm not playing
along anymore. So it's like this whole thing and I'm
just in my You can only imagine, I'm like, you know,
super happy, like the guy was doing the right thing.
Turner's honesty didn't help. They spun that like, oh the
(31:06):
guy scared, you know, Frankie, thread numb and all this stuff.
So he did testify that it wasn't me that he
had he had been lying all along. But by this
point there was these other five boys that they were
still using, you know, and what happened to be the
victims Son, Damion and so um. They lost one, they
lost a star, but they had this whole team of
(31:27):
guys still willn't to stify against me. David Lynne was
at the courthouse that day. Frankie's attorney asked that Lynn
accompany him to observe in a deposition. Lynn stated that
when Turner recanted his prior testimony, Ditch responded by threatening him.
Ditch said, quote, no more breaks if you get arrested
(31:47):
in Lynnwood. David Lynn also testified that as he and
Ditch left the holding area, Ditch stated, quote, I'll tune
him up in reference to Turner, meaning he would beat him.
Even though Ditch was a gang detective, he was in
a gang himself. Deputy Ditch was very eager to admit
(32:08):
that he was a Viking. You know, you know, there
was no like, no, I've never heard of the Vikings.
I don't what you're talking about them. I'm a Viking,
like proud of it. The Vikings violence on the streets continued.
(32:35):
On May seven, four year old Josaneves was shot in
the back during a botched raid. Neaves was a witness,
so one of the incidents documented in the federal lawsuit.
There were three or four other experienced UH civil rights lawyers,
lawyers that Hugh had trained and brought along over the
(32:57):
years after the establishment of the Police Misconduct Lawyer Referral Service.
Carol and her team were up against highly paid private
attorneys representing l A County, and they embarked on a
strategy of trying to bury us in paper, and they
came close. I mean, the paper was unbelievable. Of course,
(33:21):
they were earning big dollars during all of this. We
rented a huge room with shelves with notebooks, you know,
four walls of notebooks of paper. Carol was in charge
of discovery for the entire case. It involved me receiving
(33:43):
it and distributing it to the various lawyers. The way
we had organized ourselves was each lawyer would take several
one or more clients and represent them and if there
was a criminal case, they do the criminal case, and
then they would represent them in the civil rights case.
(34:07):
And these lawyers, most of them except for this core group,
had never done this before, and they were very lax
about deadlines. I was constantly on the phone multiple times
for each of these lawyers, for each of their clients,
(34:27):
for each set of discovery, for every deposition. You have
to do this, you have to get this in, you
have to have your clients sign. It was just it
was a nightmare. It was really a nightmare um and
they would miss deadlines and we would get sanctioned and
we had no money. But it got to the point
(34:48):
where I didn't want to go into the office because
there would be a ream of paper sitting on my desk.
It was the hardest thing I've ever gone through in
my life. I have never been so depressed. For so long,
the odds seemed stacked against the p MLR S team.
In the courtroom, we had a magistrate judge who seemed
(35:10):
to be dazzled by defense council. She was this pretty
blonde woman and she'd go in court and twinkle at him,
and he would sanction our negligent failure to comply by
the correct date and ignore their deliberate refusal to have
(35:35):
someone show up for a deposition. So, you know, it
was very, very frustrating. It was very very frustrating. Despite
the difficulties, the plants of attorneys asked for big changes
to be made to the Sheriff's department in their lawsuit
in an injunction. The judge that was assigned to the case,
Terry Hatter, seemed open to hear what they had to say.
(35:56):
Hatter was black from the South Side of Chicago and
no stranger. It's a police misconduct. One of the things,
and this was huge idea, was to have a monitor
appointed to oversee the daily operations of the sheriff department.
(36:17):
We were attacking the Vikings and had here made a
finding that they were a neo Nazi white supremacist group,
which they were. HOWD granted the injunction and l A
County and its attorneys were not happy. Then Sheriff Sherman
Block told the Los Angeles Times, how does assessment of
the Vikings was quote irrational and wrong. The county appealed
(36:41):
and the injunction was reversed at the Ninth Circuit Court
of Appeals. Who were really disappointed and felt that we
had had a very solid case. So at that point
we just proceeded on with the individual cases, litigating the
(37:02):
individual cases, doing depositions, defending depositions, serving discovery requests, responding
to discovery requests, getting sanctioned every time one of our
lawyers would blow a deadline. The case was only a
class action because of the injunction. Now the Lynwood team
(37:22):
had to move forward with the cases individually. The reversal
also meant that all of the evidence of the racist
vikings deputy gang could not be used at trial. You know,
it was an opportunity to educate the community. This case
was being watched nationwide, you know, and so to be
(37:44):
deprived of that opportunity to expose this it had never
been exposed before, So yeah, I was that was a
big blow. Carol took over as the lead council. She
says that she loved doing the trials, but there were
a few we are things that happened during the litigation.
Shortly before the trial was supposed to start, I came
(38:08):
into the office one day and the phones weren't rain
I mean the phones are always rained. I mean it
was a busy office. I mean we had I had
a practice. We had a practice going on besides Lyndwood Um,
and the phones weren't ring, like about ten o'clock or's.
I didn't noticed, and so I picked up the phone
(38:32):
and there's no dial tone. So I went to one
of our office mate's phone and called the phone company,
what's going on? And the woman said, you called us
and told us to disconnect the phones because you were
going to be in Europe for several months, and that
(38:52):
was supposedly we had a password. I said, well, I'm
sure you asked for a password. Um no, so there
won't be a reconnect shin Fee. I don't know who
did that. I don't know how why that happened. Who
would do that other than these mean people. Carol won
(39:12):
the first trial, which was the case of Darren Thomas
and his friends. The jury awarded the men six hundred
and eleven thousand dollars the county chose to settle the
remaining cases in seven and a half million dollars, which
is worth about double today, was awarded to eighty plaintiffs.
One point five million was earmarked for the quote special
(39:35):
training of deputies. The sheriff's department was also required to
have a computerized use of force tracking system up and
running by the following March to identify bad deputies. The
settlement also extended the term of Special Counsel Merrick bob
who monitored the department for the l A County Board
of Supervisors. County attorneys estimated that if the case went
(39:57):
to trial, fees and damages could go up to eighteen
point nine million dollars. Sheriff Sherman Block told The l
A Times that the settlement was partly quote a business decision.
County supervisors echoed that sentiment. Gloria Molina of the first
District said, quote this was a terrible situation, but I
(40:17):
think the sheriff can say we no longer have that
situation going on. Supervisor zev Yaroslovski of District three said
that the settlement was quote better than rolling the dice
and going to court and risking an outcome that's worse,
just like Sheriff Alex Vandeueva. After him, Sheriff Block said
that he believed the Vikings were a social organization and
(40:40):
there is no proof they took action against people of color.
He also said he didn't believe the group existed anymore.
You know, that's typical. They're not going to come clean
with actual feelings about there might be something wrong. You
know that, actually, maybe we need to do something to
correct this. I didn't expect that. And him saying that
(41:05):
it is just living up to expectations, living down to expectations. Yeah,
you just have to shrug this stuff off. It's just predictable.
The Los Angeles Times and the media, I don't know
if they put those words in his mouth or if
the words came from the sheriff's Originally Block Block used
(41:28):
to call them social groups, but the Only Times would
always report them as clicks. They are not clicks. That's
such a harmless euphemism. Um, they're gangs. They're violent people,
and they do harm their territorial and they're power hungry
and they abuse their power. Why does no one seem
(41:52):
to want to take accountability for this issue? Probably a
couple of things. One is it reveals the weakness and
ineptness of leadership the administration, and also possibly because of
(42:15):
the power behind these gangs. Frankie Carrillo was eventually convicted
of murder as well as multiple counts of attempted murder.
The sentence made five years to life plus a five
year game enhancement for the murder of Noland Sarpy, and
and then the consecutive six life sentences for all the
(42:36):
other witnesses who were there that victim slash witnesses who
testified against me. So it was a total of I
guess thirty years plus seven life sentences that ran a concurrent,
So you haven't sort of finished one before you started
the other one. David Lynn wasn't convinced and kept hunting
for details about the real killer of Donald Sarpy. He
(42:59):
got his answer from a young Crowd gang member in
a deposition. David City found Oscar Rodriguez at home one
afternoon in December. David asked Rodriguez to talk to him
about Frankie's case, and the two of them headed off
in David's car to the crime scene. On that drive,
Rodriguez confessed to the murder and said he would testify
(43:20):
to such. The next day, David took Rodriguez to court.
Rodriguez Is previous attorney told the court that Frankie was
not present during the murder. The judge denied a proposed
a layer of the sentencing. Frankie received one life sentence
and a second sentence of thirty years to life to run, consecutively,
reducing his chances of parole to zero. When I was
(43:43):
in Fulsome prison, I had reached a point where I
felt that I had done everything that I can do,
Like I had had reached whatever whatever whoever can write
whatever a petition, I can you know submit all the
screaming and kicking, and so one was like that was
like what else? What what do I do next? For
of teen years, Frankie insisted on his innocence and wrote
(44:03):
letters to private attorneys, the A C. L U of
Southern California, the California Office of the Inspector General, and
the Innocence projects in California and New York. It took
two decades, but he eventually got help. Tony Carter, who
was a teacher of Fulsome prison. You know, I give
her a lot of credit and What had happened was
(44:24):
that Tony had been a teacher there for twenty years
and it was her time for her time to retire.
I'm like stumbling right, I'm like and she's like yeah,
Like I'm like, you know, Tony, you you know you've
proof read my letters. You know my my plight. Um,
would you do me a favor? And you know, now
that you're retired, if you come across a lawyer, a reporter,
anyone who you think would be interested in my story,
(44:46):
would you like just share it with them? In lo
and Behold. About six months after the conversation, in Sacramento County,
or in Sacramento near where fulsome prison is, she happened
to be at an event and at that of event,
um it became like Q and a time, And there
was a woman there who stood up and said, you know,
(45:07):
my name is Ellen Eggers. I'm a lawyer. And so
Tony was in the room says, oh lawyer. Huh. So
at some point they they chatted and Tony was like, hey,
you know, um, like there's this guy that I know,
you know, it's you know, this my former you know,
Clark whatever and a Bosom prison, like do you mind
(45:27):
if I if I share some information with you about
his case, and UM, long story short, Ellen agreed, and
so she she like was intrigued with Maybe the fact
that like, as a former staff member was sort of
vouching for me was maybe the initial sort of wave
of like, yeah, maybe I should look into this. Ellen
Eggers and her team spent the next five years of
(45:49):
their spare time working on Coreo's case. They were trying
to get Frankie a brit of Habeas corpus, a process
that allows incarcerated people to report unlawful imprisonment. At Frankie's
habeas hearing, five out of the six witnesses recanted their
original testimony, while the sixth invoked his Fifth Amendment right
(46:10):
against self incrimination. After a week long evidentiary hearing, Frankie's
request was granted and his sentence was vacated. The l
A District Attorney's office did not appeal the ruling, nor
did they attempt to refile charges. Frankie Carrillo was released
from custody on March sixth, two eleven, after over twenty
(46:33):
years of incarceration based on a lie, but the vikings
were on the residence of Lynwood wasn't over. The lawsuit
wasn't going to stop them, The damages didn't change their salaries,
and all of them had been cleared from his conduct.
Several had actually been promoted and were in a perfect
position to train the next generation of deputy gangs that's
(46:56):
coming up next week. I used to have a lowd
the whole hood. No fuck the police. I'm a fucking
hood trophy. Better keep a pistol in the field with
the ship. Keep our automatic recognized golf SHIPOD you've been
(47:21):
listening to a tradition of violence. The history of reputy
gangs in the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department posted an
executive produced by series Castle music by Yellow Hill and Steels.
For breaking news and updates and deputy gangs, follow at
L A s D. Gains on social media. The support
series is reporting and for exclusive bonus content, subscribe to
the L s D Games Patriot
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