January 18, 2023 • 57 mins
Deputy gangs don’t seem to be going anywhere. In fact, their violence and influence seems to be growing. So, what is there to do to stop them? Doesn’t anyone care?
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.
To support Cerise’s reporting, and for exclusive bonus content, subscribe to the patreon.com/lasdgangs.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Morning. This podcast contains explicit language and details acts of violence.
Listener discretion is advised. Innocent people framed, innocent people hurt,
innocent people killed, power, corruption, lies. You've heard about many
incidents that have happened at the hands of the Los
(00:20):
Angeles Sheriff's Department deputy gangs throughout this series. These stories
continue to this day, as does my reporting on them.
But we are at the end of this series for now.
I wanted to take a moment and thank you so
very much for tuning in for this last episode. I
wanted to talk about why the issues inside the l
(00:43):
A County Sheriff's Department are allowed to fester and to
take time and to take questions from you, our listeners.
This is a tradition of violence, a history of deputy
gangs inside the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. So a
(01:06):
question that I'll go ahead and try to answer, as
many of you asked this in some shape or form,
what's being done about the issue of deputy gangs with
so much protection and power. Maybe you're thinking, isn't there
some sort of governmental body that can nullify some of
these deputy gangs actions. Well, yes, and No, here's Brian
(01:27):
kay Williams again describing what the Civilian Oversight Commission does.
What are some of the responsibilities of the Commission. Well,
when you look at our charter, it says to increase
the transparency of the l A County Sheriff's Department. It
says that we are to provide recommendations on bettering the department,
and it says that we are supposed to serve as
(01:49):
a bridge between the community and the department. And so
if we use those as our guide stars, everything else
falls below that. So it maybe a horrific shooting has occurred,
and we've had unfortunately way too many of those during
my six year tenure here with the Commission, and we
will hold a public hearing or a community meeting so
that we can get information out there to the community
(02:11):
about what has happened and who was involved and what
the facts are. It maybe us taking a look at
some of their policies. Body war and cameras, for example,
is a great example. We really pushed for that to
get the department. It was the largest department in the
nation that didn't have body war and cameras, to get
those in place, to get additional cameras within the jail
system to look at their use of force policies, and
(02:33):
of course now we're looking at the deputing gang issues.
So that's what we do. That's what we try to do,
But we're a work in progress. Do you feel like
the Commission has enough resources to be able to do
its job effectively? We get by with what we have.
We could certainly use more resources, more staff, more specialized staff.
(02:53):
We could absolutely use that. But we're not going to
sit here and say we can't do what we have
to do because of the size of our staff for
the resources that we have. So I think we punch
above our weight at this point. Honestly, with the staff
that we have. We have such a hard working staff
who look at a myriad of issues that come our
direction every day. Literally every day, we'll receive complaints or
(03:15):
information from image of the community. What powers of enforcement
does the Civilian Oversight Commission have? We're an advisory commission.
We could tell the Sheriff's department to jump ten feet
high and they can just simply say no and there's
no consequence. Our two biggest tools really, one is, of course,
the power of the bully pulpit. We attract a lot
of media and have a very large following, so we're
(03:38):
able to help shape sort of the public discourse about
what's going on in the Sheriff's department. Secondly, several years ago,
the people in our community passed a measure which gave
us the ability to subpoena folks, and in the state
legislature also gave us that ability, and then the Board
of Supervisors also gave us that ability. So we have
this tripart ability to subpoena people and documents to help
(03:59):
us do our job. The Sheriff's Department has resisted that
on any number of occasions, so it has made our
job a little more difficult, but that really is the
only power that we have. When this interview was recorded,
the Civilian Oversight Commission had issued multiple subpoenas to then
Shareff alex Via Nueva and Undershriff Timothy Murakami, which they ignored.
(04:21):
What is the Civilian Oversight Commission strategy to make the
sheriff and the undershriff comply? Well, I mean, our first strategy,
of course, is the legal strategy. We're fighting this and
we're grateful for County Council's assistance in fighting this issue
in court, and we think it's really important for him
tests fight under oath, which is what the subpoena require
(04:43):
on deputy gangs and other issues as well. I think
half of our commission, our lawyers and former judges in
the whole bit, this is not our first rodeo. From
the way they tell it, the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department
cares about ending deputy gangs, but they also disparage the
agencies to asked with investigating the issue. Here's current Assistant
(05:03):
Sheriff Holly Francisco at a press conference in June. As
you all know and have heard the disingenuous and disheartening
comments made by Sean Kennedy from the Civilian Oversight Commission
last week that the Sheriff and the Sheriff's Department has
done nothing to address their awarding deputy gangs. This statement
is furthest from the truth. The information will provide is
(05:26):
factual information on what we have done and hope and
our hope is that this allows us to continue building
trust with the communities we serve and to counter the
false narrative that that has been broadcasted by the o
I G and CC October, public Reform Legislation a B
(05:46):
was signed into law. Sheriff Ilinoueva was a proud sponsor
of this legislation. Mike Gibson, a California assemblyman, authored the bill.
Before becoming a politician. Gibson was a police officer with
the may A Police Department. The department was shut down
in two thousand and ten after the city lost its
insurance policy for being too high of a liability. That
(06:09):
was due to many factors, a big one being an
excessive number of complaints against officers in the department. Those
complaints included police violence, false arrests, and rogue cops. I
actually sponsored a bight was modeled after the Sheriff's department
Deputy Click policy. A B nine eight is a law
(06:32):
that prohibits involvement in police gangs and makes departments tell
other law enforcement agencies if someone was fired for being
in one. Our department policy was already consistent with this
new law. Since our policy was implemented in February. Former
Sheriff alex Via Nueva says that all deputies had to
watch a video about the policy. I want to provide
(06:54):
clarity so every employee unmistakably understands any employee who aligns
with a click or subgroup which engages in any form
of misconduct will be held accountable. I do not want
you joining these alleged clicks anymore perially. This is a
zero tolerance issue. So those who may have joined these
clicks in the past, times have changed and you need
(07:17):
to change with him. We cannot go back in time
and none do those decisions. But moving forward, we want
to better align ourselves with the public's expectations. This is
what change in the culture of our organization looks like.
But what the department says and what the department does
are two very different things. When sure Philoeva took office,
he immediately transferred the Captain and the East LA executive
(07:39):
team out of East LA Station. This was the first
time I've seen this done in my thirty two and
a half years. The sheriff had concern for the leadership
and to a strong command staff needed to be put
in place. Throughout two thousand and nineteen, thirty six personnel
were transferred out of the vast l A station. I
mentioned in episode eleven that Captain Ernie Chavez admitted under
(08:01):
oath that even though via in a Wava touted thirty
six transfers from the East l A station is discipline
that never happened. This does not include the four employees
that were discharged and twenty two employees that received suspensions
for the Kennedy Hall investigation. Those deputies, as we've covered,
we're all linked to being in a deputy gang, and
(08:23):
right now, as of this recording, they're waiting for the
county to decide whether they can get their jobs back.
The system keeps deputy gangs protected. Several of you wanted
to know why these deputies are not being prosecuted. I
wanted to ask District Attorney George Gascon myself on this podcast,
(08:44):
but unfortunately he ultimately declined to sit down with me.
I was able to get a statement from the District
Attorney's office, which I've asked an actor to read. We
take alleged membership in deputy gangs very seriously. As currently written,
the law prohibits membership and law enforcement gangs and requires
law enforcement to disclose the termination of an officer for
(09:06):
participation in a law enforcement gang to a law enforcement
agency conducting a pre employment background investigation on such an officer. However,
the law does not make membership alone a criminal offense
see Penal Code Section one three seven zero. If it
is determined that a particular law enforcement officer who is
a member of a law enforcement gang has committed a
(09:28):
specific criminal offense beyond membership, they can be proved beyond
a reasonable doubt, this office will file charges. The d
a's office is saying that being a deputy gang member
is not a crime. They will only file charges if
they believe they can prove that deputy gang members have
committed crimes, whether the dh charges or not. People can
(10:03):
sue cops for damages in civil courts. Qualified immunity is
a legal principle that basically it makes it very difficult
to successfully sue a cop in federal court. It gives
them immunity from a civil suit. They can only be
held accountable if a court previously ruled that whatever the
officer did was previously deemed unconstitutional. Here's Attorney John Burton,
(10:27):
who took on the Vikings in the early nineties. They've
made this horrific doctrine of qualified immunity that is just
a nightmare for us, and that just keeps getting worse
and worse. So how has qualified immunity changed the landscape
of lawsuits against police? So the idea is, there's something
(10:50):
called the Federal Civil Rights Act, which is Section So
I consider myself a Night three lawyer. That's, you know,
if I'm among lawyers, what I would call myself. And see,
which was part of reconstruction, was actually part of the
ku Klex Klan Act of eighteen seventy one, is a
(11:12):
beautifully simple statute. Any person who's acting under color of
law of state law, which would include any kind of
police officer, prison guard, who deprives another person of a
constitutional right can be sued in federal court for money damages.
Very simple, and the Supreme Court really didn't kind of
(11:39):
recognize it for different reasons until a famous case in
the early sixties called Monroe versus Paid, And then right
away they said, but in another case shortly after that,
but if the officer is acting in good faith, that's
the defense. And that good faith defense kind of evolved
into this thing called quality find immunity, which says, well,
(12:03):
if the officers conduct did not violate clearly established law,
then that's a defense and you can't sue them. So
they keep making that more and more extreme. The late
Associate Justice Antonin Scalia said, well, you've got to approach
(12:24):
this on a certain level of specificity. So everybody knows
that excessive force violates clearly established law, and there's guidelines
for what excessive forces more force and is objectively reasonable
under the circumstances. So that should be the end of it.
But they say, oh, but the force that the officer
used here under these particular circumstances, how would the officer
(12:48):
know that that was going to be excessive? Do you
have a case a precedent that shows that. Well, that's
absurd because very few cases wind up being precedent, and
every case is like a snowflake. I mean, they're all different.
There's patterns we see over and over again, but you
(13:09):
can't say, you know, this is the same case. So now,
whenever we file lawsuits, were subject to the fact that, well,
where's your case it says what this officer did was
held to be unconstitutional, because without that then they're intiled
(13:31):
to qualified immunity. This means that if you're going to
file a civil rights case against a cop in federal court,
they can say they didn't know the force they were
using was excessive, and a judge can find in their
favor unless there is a case exactly like yours which
creates a precedent. If they make emotion that they're in
(13:53):
toil to qualified immunity and the judge says, well, I
don't agree. I think the law was clearly ablished enough
for them to know that this was illegal, then they
can appeal that, and they can appeal it all the way.
The U. S. Supreme Court, which has not been shy
about reversing lower courts that have said there's no qualified immunity.
(14:15):
It also moves the decision making on what's reasonable conduct
from the jury, where the Constitution says it goes because
we have a right to a jury trial in civil
cases under the Seventh Amendment. Two judges, there's nothing comparable
to this in any other area of the law. I mean,
try committing a crime and somebody saying, oh, well, you know,
(14:39):
it wasn't clearly established that committing this crime exactly this
way was, you know, illegal. You know, we have to
go look at the cases and stuff. I mean, it's
it's it's preposterous. So it's cast a dark shadow over
our entire practice. It just keeps growing and with these
people that are currently in the Supreme Court. It's just
(15:01):
going to get worse if you decide to pursue a
civil case in state court instead. That comes with its
own challenges, like the Public Safety Officers Bill of Rights
Act or POBAR. Here's Brian kay Williams, Executive director of
the Civilian Oversight Commission Police Officer Bill of Rights, for example,
which prohibits us from getting certain information about certain deputies
(15:23):
as to what's going on internal policies of the department.
Here's an example. So we will sometimes get a question
or a complaint from a member of the community and
they'll say, hey, my loved one was involved in this
use of force, whether it may be a shooting or
they died in custody, and will make an inquiry as to, Okay,
who were the deputies involved in this, Was there any
(15:44):
discipline imposed, what did the disciplinary process look like? Or
we can never get to what that disciplinary process or
what the discipline was that was done on a particular
deputy because it's protected by the Police Officer Bill of Rights,
So we just can't get that information. So that just
begins all sorts of consternation between the community and the department,
(16:04):
and it breeds even additional mistrust because we can't let
them know what happened in a particular disciplinary process there.
We have asked on occasion for the names of deputies
who have been involved in shootings, and I will say
the department has given us those names as of late,
but it wasn't always like that. I think it shows
the power of the unions across the state in terms
(16:27):
of how they influence legislative issues involving police officers. There
are some tools in place to uncover some of the
information obscured by pobar, like the Pitches motion. Attorney John Sweeney,
who uncovered the Executioners gang, explains Pitches motions which allowed
you to get the background of police officer if he
(16:50):
has done something similar to your type of case. If
you can tie a nexus between your type of case
of case of fathers, racial animals, or something and this
prior record, you're supposed to be able to get that
to use to show that he asked some quick background
on the Pitches motion. It's named after Peter Pitches, a
former sheriff who also has a detention center in North
(17:12):
l A County named after him. Back in the seventies
four deputies pulled over a man named Cesar Eia Says
ended up in the ICU. The deputies claimed at Cesar
had assaulted them, even though they had no injuries. Says
that it was charged with four felony counts of assaulting
the deputies. His attorney asked for their records in search
(17:34):
of past instances of excessive force. Sheriff Pitches declined to
release the records. That led to Sasar's attorney to ask
a court to subpoena them. Pitches petitioned to stop the subpoena.
The issue went to the California Supreme Court, who sided
with Cessar and his attorney unanimously. None of the justices
(17:56):
agreed with Pitches. But not all pitches motions are grant it.
The motion needs to show good cause and situations aren't
always clear cut. Furthermore, a cops sympathetic judge could just
side with the department and choose not to release anything.
And on top of all of this, there are unions
representing cops. Police unions like the Association of Los Angeles
(18:18):
Deputy Sheriffs are less a union and more a political machine.
For a while, we were talking about this police reform
and trying to stop things like these deputy games, or
stop like some of the corruption that we have. However,
the police unions are very powerful lobbyists. They're very powerful
political voices. I think oftentimes it is it might be
(18:40):
a concept that people agree with, but they are politically
afraid to take it on. A LADS takes part in
two political action committees, the California Law and Order Independent
Expenditure Committee and the Association for Los Angeles Deputy Shares Pack.
They raise and spend millions to influence Angeline Knows, who
(19:00):
then shaped the city. They spent one point five million
dollars in eighteen to help Alex b In Nueva get
elected to sheriff in the first place, allowing deputy gangs
to thrive in They spent nearly a million dollars attempting
to defeat District Attorney George Gascon, who ran on criminal
justice reform. A LADS does actual union stuff like negotiating contracts,
(19:25):
protecting their own and also defending members when they violate
policies or break the law. Throughout the years, they've stopped reform,
protected deputies personnel records from going public, and shunned financial transparency.
There's inherent conflict and how Los Angeles County is represented
in court as well. The county has its own attorneys,
(19:48):
referred to as County Council, who advised government agencies like
the Board of Supervisors and various departments on litigation. They
also represent the Sheriff's Department. I asked Shawn Kennedy, the
chair of the Civilian Oversight Commission, why that's allowed to happen.
I frankly don't know. I I don't think it's right.
I actually wrote a memo to the County Council saying,
(20:11):
I don't think that the CEC can achieve its mission
without its own council helping us achieve our legal goals
instead of thwarting them. So I think it's debatable. But
the response was the sheriffs, the c o C, you
name it, whatever county agency. We are all part of
(20:31):
one county government, Los Angeles County. So there can't be
a conflict of interest because you the c o C,
you're just part of the Board of Supervisors. You're an
agent of the Board of Supervisors, and by representing the
Board of Supervisors, there's no conflict because ultimately they're in
(20:52):
charge of everything. Now, I don't agree with that. I
did not volunteer to become a member of the commission
and to be an agent of the Board of Supervisors,
or to represent the county government structure in any way.
I became a member in hopes that this commission would
(21:14):
reduce the number of shootings of young black and brown
men in l A County. And uh so, if I
am an agent of the Board of Supervisors, I'm a
bad one because and I believe this is true of
the entire commission. None of us view ourselves as trying
(21:35):
to represent or be an agent of the board. We're
all focused on trying to be an independent voice for transparency, collaboration,
and accountability. L A County commission the RAND Institute, a
nonprofit global policy think tank, to study deputy gangs. One
(21:58):
problem with that though the study did not call the
gangs gangs. Instead, the report was titled Understanding Subgroups within
the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. In this survey, RAND
asked one thousand, six hundred and eight deputies and supervisors
if they had been asked to be in deputy gangs.
(22:19):
Nearly two hundred and fifty seven had been asked, with
one four of them saying they've been asked within the
last five years, but no one from Brand asked if
any of these people surveyed were gang members themselves. Then
Sheriff alex Via Nueva held a press conference to discuss
the findings. He was less than enthused. The fact is,
(22:41):
we've been dealing with this issue about subgroups and clicks
for a long long time, and every single one of
my predecessors has kicked the can down the road say
that either didn't exist or did nothing really about it.
But some people, particularly politicians across the street or saying, well,
fifty is by galis on your dime, You're gonna have
(23:01):
to fix it or else. So I think it's unrealistic
and political opportunism on steroids. Look what Rolling Stone said, executioners,
reapers and Bandito's gangs of Sheriff's deputies are wrecking havoc
in l A. Wow. You know what it is. It's
a problem of perception but not reality. And that is
(23:25):
a hard cold fact about this issue. The hard cold
facts are subgroups exist in every large organization, particularly paramilitary organizations.
Be at the U s, military, be IT and firefighting organizations,
fire departments, police departments killed this elice. This is her
statement from the RAND report, and I'm troubled by the
(23:47):
fact that she's troubled. RAND Institute's study supports the decades long,
troubling history of deputy gangs in l A County Sheriff's Department.
It does not support it. She bought for a study,
she got her study, and she's using that as a
launching pad to continue her campaign and that of the
Board of Supervisors to discredit, defund, and delegitimize the Sheriff's
(24:09):
department for their political gain at the expense of public safety.
I don't know if you notice the last little bit
of venom Viennueva had stored up for Hill to Slease.
She's on the Board of Supervisors and has been a
long critic of his regime. Vienneueva and previous sheriffs were
long resistant to oversight in transparency, leading to the creation
(24:31):
of Measure A co authored by Holly Mitchell and hilled
Di Slease. The measure basically allows the board to remove
a sitting sheriff if they had just cause that includes
violation of laws related to sheriff's duties, repeated neglect of
the sheriff's duties, misusing public funds or properties, willful falsification
(24:52):
of documents, or obstruction of an investigation into the department's conduct.
The measure passed late last year and cap off the
question of what's being done about deputy gangs. Deputy gang
hearings Here Shawn Kennedy and Brian kay Williams, again, we
want to shed a light on an issue that has
(25:12):
playing this department for decades. Right, no one can sit
here and say that those deputy gangs do not exist.
We know that they exist, and so we're doing everything
we can to raise the issue, to shed some light
on these gangs, to identify those who are engaged in gangs,
and has set some policies and procedures to finally rid
(25:34):
the department of these gangs and or the actions of
these gangs. Right, it has been a long time coming.
The department has been sued over and over and over
and over again because of rogue deputies doing things that
they shouldn't be doing. It's had an incredibly horrific impact
on the community, on the lives of select members of
(25:54):
our communities. And we just have to stand up and
say enough is enough. Let's finally address this issue. Let's
knowledge is issue. Let's put policies and procedures in place
to make sure that not only we address the current issue,
but that they don't grow in the future, and ultimately
we get rid of this issue from the Ali County
Sheriff's Department. It's a work in progress. Our first thing
(26:15):
is we just wanted to put out there the evidence
because the sheriff is always saying there's no such thing
as a deputy gang. It's a unicorn. It's a problem
of perception, that's not a reality. So the first thing
we wanted to do is we wanted to take it
more seriously factually than prior commissions. And we've had seven hearings,
(26:35):
We're gonna at least have an eighth, and so just
getting the information out there for activists, scholars, government officials,
and that testimony has proved fruitful. As mentioned in episode ten,
these hearings have shed light on the inner workings of
deputy gangs. I have seen that individuals have been retaliated
(26:55):
against publicly without any fear. And I am actually not
external to this department. I'm internal. So I think I'm
within closer reach of any type of retaliation, whether it
be a putting a case on me, um initiative investigation
on me for whatever reason that might pop up. And
uh yeah, definitely from my family, even from deputy gang
(27:17):
members themselves for purposes of candor do you have a tattoo?
And what is the tattoo associated with? It is associated
with a group of deputies from contestation. The name is
the Gladiators. We received tons of questions from listeners, Some
(27:49):
of them I don't have an answer for, like why
so many police officers have violent histories, or what a
future without policing would look like. There are some people
out there like Miriam Cabba, who has written a lot
on that last subject, and I encourage you to read
her books. But there are several questions we got that
I'm going to try my best to answer. The first
(28:11):
one is from Travis, who asks have you uncovered any
evidence that this thing has moved beyond California? A lot
of information about gang activity and police and sheriff's departments
is still obscured, and many gangs that exist are not
labeled as such despite their organized violence. But some stuff
has made its way to the public. Most of the
(28:34):
police gangs we know about are in California. Ben Camacho
and knock l A discovered a gang called Met within
the Santa Anna Police Department. John Pelts and knock l
A says the l A p D has had a
gang like environment for decades. In the nineties, there was
a scandal called Rampart where over seventy officers remplicated in
(28:56):
things like shooting civilians. They would give each other plaque
for shootings, covering up crimes, and planning civilians and things
that were being done by officers, and it cost the
city over million dollars in settlements. And during that scandal
there were officers who were tattooed with Courtney Schools on
their bodies. At the time, it didn't seem like they were,
(29:18):
you know, claiming there were gang members necessarily in the department,
although a lot of critics were saying that one this
was sort of aligning with gay activity and too a
lot of the Rampart officers were also hanging out and
with alleged game members at the time, and they were
implicated in doing activities with them. He's currently investigating a
(29:39):
potential gang. So in late one on social media, someone
had posted a photograph of this menace saying sort of
jolly Roger pirate flag that was being flown over the
seventy seven Street Division station, And after it was posted
on social media, I submitted some public records requests that
asked for photos of the flag, any documentation of the image,
(30:03):
and the images specifically a school and crossbones or in
a crown that sort of smiling and it's in front
of the number seventy seven to indicate the division, and
I think later in early January, I finally got a
response from the department that was very interesting and basically
said they couldn't give me any of that documentation because
the incident was under an internal investigation. I read this
(30:25):
article about the flag, and while I was a report
reporting the article, I had found some more sort of
indicators of what the meaning behind the flag was and
other challenge coins. Challenge coins are these sort of things
that are inspired by like military culture that had passed
around police departments, that like sort of celebrate different divisions
or iconography, and they're typically obviously very pro police and
(30:48):
prideful and especially like pro like police response to violence.
They saw themselves as the vanguard of civility or whatnot.
About two months later, I received a photo from the
same neighborhood, this officer Jason Bias, who is wearing a
badge of the logo on his uniform at a restaurant
at a dinner in the daytime, and I posted the
(31:10):
image online after talking to the witness and verifying it.
And after I did that, it sort of took off.
After I posted the second photo, that department gave me
a response from Captain Stacy Spell, who is the charge
of like the media duties at the department. He gave
me a lengthy response about the uniform basically said that,
like the department understands the imagery is very offensive to
(31:33):
some people. He made some vague suggestion that he was
the officer that I was the foot of was being disciplined,
that they had now were, you know, enforcing some policies
to make sure that no one displays this insignia or
imagery and that the department itself has no relation to it,
and so anyone who would display it, you know, would
(31:53):
be out of policy if they displayed it. Officers with
the Valejo Police Department were accused of ending the badges
of department members who participated in shootings. In July of
the police chief said he launched an independent, third party
investigation into the matter. There has also been reporting that
has uncovered gangs and departments across the United States. A
(32:17):
study conducted by researchers at Northwestern University and the Invisible
Institute identified over one hundred possible so called cruise of
officers in the Chicago police department. Vice News has reported
that criminal cop gangs account for less than four percent
of Chicago's police force, but make up a quarter of
(32:38):
all complaints, settlements, and shootings. Julia Ople asks, from what
little I know? Insurance for police has been offered as
a tool to shift the financial cost of police violence
and corruption off of the taxpayer, But I'm curious so Currently,
cops are largely shielded from personal liability and lawsuits in
(33:00):
state and federal court. L A county picks up most
of the bills associated with attorney and settlement costs, and
when they don't, police unions or independent fundraisers by cops
make up the difference. Police liability insurance offers police even
more protection. If a cop is sued and they have
a policy the insurance company would handle the legal costs
(33:22):
and any settlement the officer is found to be responsible
for paying. The bright side, though, is that with liability insurance,
less taxpayer money will pay for police misconduct. Still, a
recent national study found that the employing public entity paid
point nine eight percent of damage awards in police misconduct cases.
(33:44):
So we have yet to see what effect police liability
insurance has. I spoke with Ambrose Brooks S, the campaign's
coordinator at Dignity and Power Now, which is a grassroots
organization advocating for abolition and police accountability. They tell us
more about settlements and litigation fees and where taxpayer money
(34:04):
comes into the picture. The Board of Supervisors has to
approve every settlement for the Sheriff's department, so these elected
officials know exactly how much money every year is going
to sheriff settlements. In fact, there's a county council report
that comes out every year that breaks down the litigation
fees and expenses in Toe. Out of the fourteen costliest
(34:32):
settlements for the county, eight of them were for the
Sheriff's department, and out of all of the l A
County departments, the Sheriff's department had the costliest litigation expenses
at approximately fifty nine million dollars for that year, and
the next costliest county departments litigation fees were eleven million dollars.
(34:56):
I've seen the community activated showing at the Board of
Supervisors to voice one absolute disgusted at how much money
is going to pay for the settlements, and then also
recommendations for as I said before, maybe that settlement money
(35:19):
should come from sheriff salaries and pensions, and also where
that money could be better spent. Lawyers are really immune
at this point to the emotional impact and to what
families are going through. It's like the same group of
attorneys who are defending the sheriff's department. Here's a question
from rad in Portland's how much overlap have you found
(35:42):
in white supremacist groups and deputy gangs. The origins of
policing has its roots and slave patrols, which is just
what it sounds like. So policing is inextricably linked to
white supremacy. If that seems too far back for you,
just look at the enforcement of Jim Crow laws and
you know recent statistics. A recent Guardian article revealed that
(36:04):
police killed at least one thousand, one hundred and seventy
six people in the United States last year. That's over
three people a day, nearly one hundred every month. Black
people were twenty four percent of victims, while just thirteen
percent of the population. Their data also found that black
(36:26):
and Latino residents are searched at a higher rate than
other races. We found extensive overlap between white supremacist groups
and the deputy gangs everywhere, from l A s d
deputies sworn testimonies to the actions of former Sheriff alex
Via Aueva himself. Let's start with vienn Aueva, who has
repeatedly refused to investigate or root out deputy gangs, including
(36:50):
neo Nazi gangs. He's called black deputies racial slurs, unraveled
anti racist policing reforms, and complained about media coverage of
black people. His campaign manager has a Twitter account where
he publishes blatantly racist jokes, and he quickly promoted other
deputies who advocated for racial profiling. He has ties to
(37:11):
Elsa al Dager, who was known to associate with Holocaust supporters,
three per Centers and Proud Boys, and once bragged that
she organized the largest anti Muslim rally ever in California.
Under Viennueva, white supremacy has ranged from incidents like Deputy
Samuel Aldama saying in sworn testimony that he has ill
(37:34):
feelings toward African Americans, to the continued existence of openly
neo Nazi gangs. Let's take the I P A Gang
for example. The name of the gang itself is an
acronym for inclusive province a Kia and Akia stands for
a Klansman i AM. Three employees of l A. S
(37:55):
D were found on a list of people belonging to
the Oath Keepers, the largest militants alt right organization in
the US. A member of the Civilian Oversight Commission stated
that she was concerned but not surprised, saying, quote, we
have a problem with white supremacist gangs. The tie between
(38:16):
the l A s D and the oath Keepers is
well supported. There are photos of oath Keepers paraphernalia in
the South l A station. There was even an L A.
S D deputy confirmed to be participating in the January
six insurrection in Washington, d C. The list goes on,
but one thing is clear. There are direct links between
(38:38):
the L a s D and white supremacist organizations, and
it doesn't seem like anything is being done to change this.
Sarah Kobayashi asks, with all the preponderance of evidence that
gangs exist and are a massive problem for law enforcement,
what else is being done to hold them to account?
What are their employers doing? Paula Titians community, is the media,
(39:01):
et cetera? Or are they just seen as the cost
of doing business? Maybe just an alternative arm of the
legal system. Although there is clear evidence that deputy gangs exists,
the l A s D refuses to take any internal action,
instead promoting gang members and outside actors do not have
enough power and reach to create any significant change. It's
(39:24):
key to note that higher ranking members of the l
A s D are instrumental to the existence of deputy gangs.
Sean Kennedy is the chair of the Civilian Oversight Commission.
I wanted to play some clips from my interview with
him to help explain why deputies haven't been penalized. Here's
what Shaun had to say about Viennueva's inaction towards deputy gangs.
(39:46):
We have been trying to get Sheriff Viennueva under oath
answering questions about deputy gangs for a very long time,
and he has invented every excuse a reason in the
book for not doing so, and it has used his
county funded lawyers to help him, and he's been very
(40:07):
successful at it. Vienn Aueva former under Sheriff Timothy Murakami
and others have used legal tactics to guard themselves from
any sort of cooperation with the CEOC. The other thing
is regarding Sheriff vien Aueva and under Sheriff of Murakami,
they have been especially aggressive in their legal tactics. We
(40:30):
were on the eve of having full briefing on a
contempt hearing when under Shriff Murakami filed some kind of
claim to recuse the judge. Then we went before a
new judge and that judge set the hearing off into December.
The CEOC demanded that we try to have it accelerated,
(40:53):
and apparently the new judge wouldn't do that. So the
judges claim their calendars are very full, and so every
time a tactic is employed by the sheriff, which is
his right, it results in more and more delays. It
is very troubling and you have every right to ask,
(41:17):
like what's going on. So another reason nothing has been
done is that, unfortunately the system is slow and bureaucratic
and not equipped to take quick direct action on urgent
issues like l A s D gangs. Viennueva and others
in leadership positions have continued to prevent any investigation or
insight into the deputy gangs. They banned Inspector General Max
(41:40):
Huntsman from all l A s D facilities when he
tried to look into the gangs and harassed and intimidated
journalists reporting on the issue like myself instead of doing
anything about it. So, because of this impediment from the top,
it's very difficult for anyone within l A s D
to do anything to stop deputy gang. To make batters worse,
(42:01):
many deputies are part of unions that will fight subpoena
is placed on members and protect them from being fired.
Deputies that try to resist the gangs from the inside
are often threatened and harassed. Their tires are slashed and
dead rats are left by their vehicles. They are intimidated
into not speaking out, even fearing for their lives. Families
(42:24):
of victims of deputy gang violence are often the ones
most determined to speak out, but even they are constantly
harassed by deputies. Some, understandably, fearing for their own safety
and family members safety, decide to stay quiet. Some are
pushed to sign n d as promising they won't discuss
what happened. Others, like the family of Anthony Vargas, struggle
(42:46):
to expose deputies who have committed murder, but face intimidation
and multi year long wait times for court cases and
investigations to wrap up. There has been a lot of
recent media coverage on l A s D gangs from
me and other journalists like Eileen check Median and Kate Cagel,
but because of systemic dysfunction and racism, inefficient government regulatory systems,
(43:09):
and the dismissal and resistance of l A s D leadership,
there's only a limited amount media coverage can do in
affecting immediate and concrete change. David of Augusta, Georgia says,
are these people not screening for sociopathy? The short answer,
they are given a psychological exam, but this does not
prevent them from inflicting violence onto residents once they are
(43:32):
officially a deputy. To go a little deeper into the
screening and application process, there are several steps that an
applicant must go through in order to become a deputy sheriff. First,
there are some basic requirements regarding citizenship, education, physical condition, vision, hearing,
and a couple of other things. Then you have to
(43:52):
submit an application, then get a score of at least
sevent on an exam, which tests things like data interpretation, reasoning, spelling,
and vocabulary. Next is an interview where you'll be assessed
on your experience, motivation, interpersonal skills, and community involvement. Finally,
after a background check, you'll go through a physical fitness
(44:14):
test and get a medical and psychological evaluation. The psychological
evaluation isn't a screening for mental health illnesses. Rather, it
is usually composed of a self interview, multiple choice questions,
and an interview with a psychologist. Candidates are asked about
topics like history of drug use, personal biases, integrity, impulse control,
(44:37):
appropriate attitudes about sexuality and honesty. Given the stories you've
heard about rampant racism, sexual harassment, fist fights at department events,
and lying about ghost guns, it seems this examination has
failed to screen out deputy gang members. To say The
least one instance where this system went wrong was an
(44:57):
Alameda in northern California, UH just a couple of months ago.
In September, forty seven deputies were stripped of their guns
and arrest powers because an audit revealed they had failed
their psychological exams. This was ten per cent of their
entire force, and they will still receive their pay and benefits.
(45:19):
The internal audit was triggered by a deputy's murder of
a couple in their home earlier in September. A spokesperson
for the Alameda County Sheriff's Department had said earlier that
the deputy charged with the killing had passed his psychological test.
Numerous other sources, however, said he had failed, but was
still hired and given weapons. The spokesperson said the department
(45:42):
overlooked the quote not suitable results and candidates psychological exams
because they desperately needed to hire more deputies, and that
the whole incident was quote not as bad as it sounds.
If there are people in the Alameda County Sheriff's Department
willing to overlook not doable results on psychological evaluations, chances
(46:03):
are the same oversight airs occur in other counties, especially
when key players are known for other instances of corruption, violence,
gang activity, and mismanagement. Sometimes it can even be advantageous
for them. Outside of psychological screenings, law enforcement systems are
known to screen out candidates who have i c s
(46:23):
that are too high. In two thousand, a man in
Connecticut sued because he was rejected from a job as
a police officer given that he scored thirty three points
on a test for which the department only accepts candidates
who scored twenty. To the score on the test translates
to i Q. The police department's rationale was that officers
(46:45):
with i q s above a certain level will get
bored with the job and leave. While this may be true,
it also has the effect of putting people with lower
i q s in positions of power with deadly weapons.
Although i Q is in no way associate aided with
mental illnesses like sociopathy, this case demonstrates how police can
select for who they want in departments with their own
(47:08):
preferences and desires in mind, rather than the public's. Stephen
Elias wants to know have any notable Sheriff's gang members
moved into l A p D. I'm not sure about
l A p D, but a few deputy gang members
have moved on to other departments, and some even run them.
One such deputy is John Chapman, who is a self
(47:29):
admitted tattooed Viking. He's currently an under sheriff with the
Clark County Sheriff's Department in Washington and spent some time
with the Vancouver, Washington Police Department two. But before that,
between nineteen eighty three and nine four, Chapman was an
l A s D Deputy sheriff. In his eleven year
career with l A s D, Chapman was part of
(47:50):
a group of deputies that arrested, imprisoned, and beat Lloyd
Polk for over seventeen days. We talked about this incident
in episode two. Chapman was also part of a group
of deputies that shot and killed then twenty one year
old Hong Kyo Lee. Deputies chased Hung Pyo for fifteen miles.
He never got over thirty five miles per hour. Once
(48:13):
pulled over, Chapman and other deputies shot him as two
Long Beach Police officers stood nearby. The deputies claimed Ung
Pyo reversed, making them fear for their lives, but the
Long Beach police officers say they never saw the car
back up. Furthermore, Hung Kyo's car was found over one
feet in front of the spot where the shooting took place.
(48:36):
The deputy's report stated that a shot and dying Lee
was able to shift from reverse to drive and go
that distance and crash. Hung Pio's brother Paul, told The
l A Times that he didn't buy the deputies versions
of things. He said, quote, it doesn't really make sense.
You got eight bullets in your body and you can
(48:56):
do that. My dad can't understand why there were bruises
on my brother's face. There's many other instances of Chapman
allegedly violating the Fourth Amendment, harming people, holding people at gunpoint,
and falsifying warrants and reports. And again he's now helping
to run the Clark County Sheriff's Department. Other sheriff's deputies
(49:18):
mentioned in this series include Victor Clay, an alleged grim
reaper we discussed in episode three, who is now chief
of the Harvard University Police Department. We reached out to
Clay for comment and he declined. And then there's Robert Johnson,
who former deputy Randy Higgins says as a grim reaper.
He is now the sheriff of Santa Clara County. Johnson
(49:40):
denies that he is a member of the gang. Olivia
asks are these officers all men? Are there women officers
in these gangs? And last, these officers families are they
still with these gang members? The vast majority of officers
and deputy gangs are men. Some gangs, such as the Bandidos,
(50:01):
don't even allow women or black people to become full members. However,
some women still become associates. Some examples are Sergeant Angelica
Patty Estrada, who was called the Pink Hand and was
regarded as the brain of the Bandidos operations. Carrie Robless
Placentia was also affiliated with the Bandidos. She was trained
(50:22):
by gang member Vincent Moran. She has also been photographed
holding paraphernalia with the Fort Apache logo. Of course, many
women resist the deputy gangs they find themselves surrounded by.
When they begin their jobs as deputies, they might face
inappropriate touching, request for sexual favors, and other harassment. If
(50:43):
they refuse, they might even be given extra work moved
to a different station for no fault of their own,
threatened both verbally and with objects like dead rats, and
further harassed. Regarding the spouses of male deputy gang members,
some stay with them for various reasons, including a lack
of knowledge about their husband's activities, belief and shared racist
(51:05):
assumptions and glorification of deputy gangs, or simply providing for
their families and themselves. Some spouses do get divorced, particularly
because the values that deputy gang members hold translate to
the home as well. I talked to his sham Ali Bob,
the violence prevention program manager with Contra Costa Health Services,
(51:26):
about why cops tend to be more violent. Why is
there a higher propensity to be physically abusive? Well, I
think that what I hear on the street is that
a lot of people that may be feeling insecurity or
frustration with their life circumstances may be drawn to positions
(51:49):
that imbue them with authority. Ali Bob says those great
benefits play into why some people may stick with an
abuse of spouse. These spouses are more or less like survivors, right,
They're either survivors or their witnesses to stuff. It's undeniable
that a lot of these spouses will be in a
position where their partner is the main breadwinner, there's the
(52:13):
sole source of income. They probably get a wonderful pension,
great benefits, zero copay for dental and vision and medical,
and so a partner with insurance will sort of gain
a leverage over their partner who may not have as
good of a job. And so often systems in place
(52:35):
that are supposed to help people experiencing domestic violence and
abuse can end up doing more harm, especially when people
working within them allow them to. In our interview, Ali
Bob's book candidly about the police officers he speaks to
and what they say about people they interact with. I
know a police officer who really doesn't like homeless people
(52:57):
with children. He tend to vilify those parents. He thinks
that those parents are doing something wrong, that it's a crime,
and that they should be locked up in all this
other stuff. He did not say if he ever challenged
that cop on those beliefs, And even after hearing that
kind of prejudice consistently from police, Ala Bob still believes
(53:18):
that cops are the best answer to these problems. Police
are usually like the best funded public system that victims
and other people will run into. They're not preventers. They
are not funded to prevent bad things from happening. And
if police aren't there to prevent crime, what are they doing.
(53:40):
Janelle from Southern California asks, can you explain station numbers
in relation to a station tattoo? Like what does a
station number signify? And how is the station number assigned
to a police department. Every station has an identifying number
used during radio communications, which is synonymous with the station's
idea any it's used internally among the employees and officers.
(54:04):
When gangs are created, these station numbers are incorporated into
the tattoo as a form of identification and pride. There's
an understanding that if they all have the same tattoo
and shed blood together, they're bonded as brothers forever. A
question from Ellen what is life like for non gang
member deputies? Lieutenant Sidra Sharad Strong opened up about life
(54:27):
inside l a s D outside of a deputy gang
in episode five. Here's more from her from a documentary
she put together about her ongoing issues with the department
under former Sheriff Alex Vianueva. I joined the military at
a young age, and I've been with the Los Angeles
County Sheriff's Department for twenty six years. I was floored
(54:47):
by the vile bitterness of the incompetent leaders, not real leaders,
but pretentious, greedy staff members interested only in climbing to
the next rank or covering up their incompetence with lives.
Ellen also asks what is the size of the non
gang population or is it basically everyone? A former Sheriff's
(55:07):
Department member testified to the Civilian Oversight Commission that about
fifteen of deputies are participating in deputy gangs. Some current
deputies I've spoken to say that everyone inside the department
is aware of them. Here's a question from Breva Singh.
Now that Robert Luna is the new sheriff, are you
(55:28):
any more hopeful about l a s d s desire
to deal with these gangs? Here's Ambrose from Dignity and Power.
Now again, it's like the expectations are incredibly low, and
we have to think about the fact that Alex be
in a Wava ran on an anti corruption platform as well.
Luna has been in office for what one month at
this point, and there hasn't been anything radical done. Yet
(55:50):
it would have been cool if something some beyond symbolic
gesture was made in the first month that shows his
commitment to rooting out deputy gangs. And but the reality
of the deputy gangs is like they're going to exist
with or without Robert Luna. And there are already policies
and procedures within the Sheriff's Department that supposedly outlaw gangs.
(56:13):
They've been able to thrive and fester within the department
in the face of these policies. I remember Robert Luna
saying something that like, I'm gonna look through the organizational
components of the department and look through the policies and
see whether or not things need to change. Like it
will take a lot, I think, to even give hope,
to give even the smallest bit of hope. Marlene asks,
(56:34):
is Biden aware and can we pressure him to do
something before the election. Congresswoman Maxine Waters has sent several
letters to the Department of Justice demanding an investigation. She
hasn't heard back yet. Finally, the million dollar question from
David Williams, Hi miscastle. I guess my question is why
isn't this a federal investigation. Why haven't the feds taken
(56:57):
over the department via consent decree? Dave that the short
answer is, I have no idea. If you are a
federal agent listening to this, please get back to me.
I used to add a whole hood. No, fuck the police.
I'm a fucking trophy. You've been listening to a tradition
of violence. History of deputy gangs in the Los Angeles
County Sheriff's Department. Thank you so much, hosted an executive
(57:20):
produced by Series, Castle, music by Yellow Hill and Steels.
If you're enjoying a tradition of violence, please give us
a five star rating and leave a written review. For
breaking news and updates on deputy gangs, follow at l
A s D Gangs on social media. To support series's
reporting and for exclusive bonus content, subscribe to the l
A s D Gangs Patreon. This is funn
Morning. This podcast contains explicit language and details acts of violence.
Listener discretion is advised. Innocent people framed, innocent people hurt,
innocent people killed, power, corruption, lies. You've heard about many
incidents that have happened at the hands of the Los
(00:20):
Angeles Sheriff's Department deputy gangs throughout this series. These stories
continue to this day, as does my reporting on them.
But we are at the end of this series for now.
I wanted to take a moment and thank you so
very much for tuning in for this last episode. I
wanted to talk about why the issues inside the l
(00:43):
A County Sheriff's Department are allowed to fester and to
take time and to take questions from you, our listeners.
This is a tradition of violence, a history of deputy
gangs inside the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. So a
(01:06):
question that I'll go ahead and try to answer, as
many of you asked this in some shape or form,
what's being done about the issue of deputy gangs with
so much protection and power. Maybe you're thinking, isn't there
some sort of governmental body that can nullify some of
these deputy gangs actions. Well, yes, and No, here's Brian
(01:27):
kay Williams again describing what the Civilian Oversight Commission does.
What are some of the responsibilities of the Commission. Well,
when you look at our charter, it says to increase
the transparency of the l A County Sheriff's Department. It
says that we are to provide recommendations on bettering the department,
and it says that we are supposed to serve as
(01:49):
a bridge between the community and the department. And so
if we use those as our guide stars, everything else
falls below that. So it maybe a horrific shooting has occurred,
and we've had unfortunately way too many of those during
my six year tenure here with the Commission, and we
will hold a public hearing or a community meeting so
that we can get information out there to the community
(02:11):
about what has happened and who was involved and what
the facts are. It maybe us taking a look at
some of their policies. Body war and cameras, for example,
is a great example. We really pushed for that to
get the department. It was the largest department in the
nation that didn't have body war and cameras, to get
those in place, to get additional cameras within the jail
system to look at their use of force policies, and
(02:33):
of course now we're looking at the deputing gang issues.
So that's what we do. That's what we try to do,
But we're a work in progress. Do you feel like
the Commission has enough resources to be able to do
its job effectively? We get by with what we have.
We could certainly use more resources, more staff, more specialized staff.
(02:53):
We could absolutely use that. But we're not going to
sit here and say we can't do what we have
to do because of the size of our staff for
the resources that we have. So I think we punch
above our weight at this point. Honestly, with the staff
that we have. We have such a hard working staff
who look at a myriad of issues that come our
direction every day. Literally every day, we'll receive complaints or
(03:15):
information from image of the community. What powers of enforcement
does the Civilian Oversight Commission have? We're an advisory commission.
We could tell the Sheriff's department to jump ten feet
high and they can just simply say no and there's
no consequence. Our two biggest tools really, one is, of course,
the power of the bully pulpit. We attract a lot
of media and have a very large following, so we're
(03:38):
able to help shape sort of the public discourse about
what's going on in the Sheriff's department. Secondly, several years ago,
the people in our community passed a measure which gave
us the ability to subpoena folks, and in the state
legislature also gave us that ability, and then the Board
of Supervisors also gave us that ability. So we have
this tripart ability to subpoena people and documents to help
(03:59):
us do our job. The Sheriff's Department has resisted that
on any number of occasions, so it has made our
job a little more difficult, but that really is the
only power that we have. When this interview was recorded,
the Civilian Oversight Commission had issued multiple subpoenas to then
Shareff alex Via Nueva and Undershriff Timothy Murakami, which they ignored.
(04:21):
What is the Civilian Oversight Commission strategy to make the
sheriff and the undershriff comply? Well, I mean, our first strategy,
of course, is the legal strategy. We're fighting this and
we're grateful for County Council's assistance in fighting this issue
in court, and we think it's really important for him
tests fight under oath, which is what the subpoena require
(04:43):
on deputy gangs and other issues as well. I think
half of our commission, our lawyers and former judges in
the whole bit, this is not our first rodeo. From
the way they tell it, the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department
cares about ending deputy gangs, but they also disparage the
agencies to asked with investigating the issue. Here's current Assistant
(05:03):
Sheriff Holly Francisco at a press conference in June. As
you all know and have heard the disingenuous and disheartening
comments made by Sean Kennedy from the Civilian Oversight Commission
last week that the Sheriff and the Sheriff's Department has
done nothing to address their awarding deputy gangs. This statement
is furthest from the truth. The information will provide is
(05:26):
factual information on what we have done and hope and
our hope is that this allows us to continue building
trust with the communities we serve and to counter the
false narrative that that has been broadcasted by the o
I G and CC October, public Reform Legislation a B
(05:46):
was signed into law. Sheriff Ilinoueva was a proud sponsor
of this legislation. Mike Gibson, a California assemblyman, authored the bill.
Before becoming a politician. Gibson was a police officer with
the may A Police Department. The department was shut down
in two thousand and ten after the city lost its
insurance policy for being too high of a liability. That
(06:09):
was due to many factors, a big one being an
excessive number of complaints against officers in the department. Those
complaints included police violence, false arrests, and rogue cops. I
actually sponsored a bight was modeled after the Sheriff's department
Deputy Click policy. A B nine eight is a law
(06:32):
that prohibits involvement in police gangs and makes departments tell
other law enforcement agencies if someone was fired for being
in one. Our department policy was already consistent with this
new law. Since our policy was implemented in February. Former
Sheriff alex Via Nueva says that all deputies had to
watch a video about the policy. I want to provide
(06:54):
clarity so every employee unmistakably understands any employee who aligns
with a click or subgroup which engages in any form
of misconduct will be held accountable. I do not want
you joining these alleged clicks anymore perially. This is a
zero tolerance issue. So those who may have joined these
clicks in the past, times have changed and you need
(07:17):
to change with him. We cannot go back in time
and none do those decisions. But moving forward, we want
to better align ourselves with the public's expectations. This is
what change in the culture of our organization looks like.
But what the department says and what the department does
are two very different things. When sure Philoeva took office,
he immediately transferred the Captain and the East LA executive
(07:39):
team out of East LA Station. This was the first
time I've seen this done in my thirty two and
a half years. The sheriff had concern for the leadership
and to a strong command staff needed to be put
in place. Throughout two thousand and nineteen, thirty six personnel
were transferred out of the vast l A station. I
mentioned in episode eleven that Captain Ernie Chavez admitted under
(08:01):
oath that even though via in a Wava touted thirty
six transfers from the East l A station is discipline
that never happened. This does not include the four employees
that were discharged and twenty two employees that received suspensions
for the Kennedy Hall investigation. Those deputies, as we've covered,
we're all linked to being in a deputy gang, and
(08:23):
right now, as of this recording, they're waiting for the
county to decide whether they can get their jobs back.
The system keeps deputy gangs protected. Several of you wanted
to know why these deputies are not being prosecuted. I
wanted to ask District Attorney George Gascon myself on this podcast,
(08:44):
but unfortunately he ultimately declined to sit down with me.
I was able to get a statement from the District
Attorney's office, which I've asked an actor to read. We
take alleged membership in deputy gangs very seriously. As currently written,
the law prohibits membership and law enforcement gangs and requires
law enforcement to disclose the termination of an officer for
(09:06):
participation in a law enforcement gang to a law enforcement
agency conducting a pre employment background investigation on such an officer. However,
the law does not make membership alone a criminal offense
see Penal Code Section one three seven zero. If it
is determined that a particular law enforcement officer who is
a member of a law enforcement gang has committed a
(09:28):
specific criminal offense beyond membership, they can be proved beyond
a reasonable doubt, this office will file charges. The d
a's office is saying that being a deputy gang member
is not a crime. They will only file charges if
they believe they can prove that deputy gang members have
committed crimes, whether the dh charges or not. People can
(10:03):
sue cops for damages in civil courts. Qualified immunity is
a legal principle that basically it makes it very difficult
to successfully sue a cop in federal court. It gives
them immunity from a civil suit. They can only be
held accountable if a court previously ruled that whatever the
officer did was previously deemed unconstitutional. Here's Attorney John Burton,
(10:27):
who took on the Vikings in the early nineties. They've
made this horrific doctrine of qualified immunity that is just
a nightmare for us, and that just keeps getting worse
and worse. So how has qualified immunity changed the landscape
of lawsuits against police? So the idea is, there's something
(10:50):
called the Federal Civil Rights Act, which is Section So
I consider myself a Night three lawyer. That's, you know,
if I'm among lawyers, what I would call myself. And see,
which was part of reconstruction, was actually part of the
ku Klex Klan Act of eighteen seventy one, is a
(11:12):
beautifully simple statute. Any person who's acting under color of
law of state law, which would include any kind of
police officer, prison guard, who deprives another person of a
constitutional right can be sued in federal court for money damages.
Very simple, and the Supreme Court really didn't kind of
(11:39):
recognize it for different reasons until a famous case in
the early sixties called Monroe versus Paid, And then right
away they said, but in another case shortly after that,
but if the officer is acting in good faith, that's
the defense. And that good faith defense kind of evolved
into this thing called quality find immunity, which says, well,
(12:03):
if the officers conduct did not violate clearly established law,
then that's a defense and you can't sue them. So
they keep making that more and more extreme. The late
Associate Justice Antonin Scalia said, well, you've got to approach
(12:24):
this on a certain level of specificity. So everybody knows
that excessive force violates clearly established law, and there's guidelines
for what excessive forces more force and is objectively reasonable
under the circumstances. So that should be the end of it.
But they say, oh, but the force that the officer
used here under these particular circumstances, how would the officer
(12:48):
know that that was going to be excessive? Do you
have a case a precedent that shows that. Well, that's
absurd because very few cases wind up being precedent, and
every case is like a snowflake. I mean, they're all different.
There's patterns we see over and over again, but you
(13:09):
can't say, you know, this is the same case. So now,
whenever we file lawsuits, were subject to the fact that, well,
where's your case it says what this officer did was
held to be unconstitutional, because without that then they're intiled
(13:31):
to qualified immunity. This means that if you're going to
file a civil rights case against a cop in federal court,
they can say they didn't know the force they were
using was excessive, and a judge can find in their
favor unless there is a case exactly like yours which
creates a precedent. If they make emotion that they're in
(13:53):
toil to qualified immunity and the judge says, well, I
don't agree. I think the law was clearly ablished enough
for them to know that this was illegal, then they
can appeal that, and they can appeal it all the way.
The U. S. Supreme Court, which has not been shy
about reversing lower courts that have said there's no qualified immunity.
(14:15):
It also moves the decision making on what's reasonable conduct
from the jury, where the Constitution says it goes because
we have a right to a jury trial in civil
cases under the Seventh Amendment. Two judges, there's nothing comparable
to this in any other area of the law. I mean,
try committing a crime and somebody saying, oh, well, you know,
(14:39):
it wasn't clearly established that committing this crime exactly this
way was, you know, illegal. You know, we have to
go look at the cases and stuff. I mean, it's
it's it's preposterous. So it's cast a dark shadow over
our entire practice. It just keeps growing and with these
people that are currently in the Supreme Court. It's just
(15:01):
going to get worse if you decide to pursue a
civil case in state court instead. That comes with its
own challenges, like the Public Safety Officers Bill of Rights
Act or POBAR. Here's Brian kay Williams, Executive director of
the Civilian Oversight Commission Police Officer Bill of Rights, for example,
which prohibits us from getting certain information about certain deputies
(15:23):
as to what's going on internal policies of the department.
Here's an example. So we will sometimes get a question
or a complaint from a member of the community and
they'll say, hey, my loved one was involved in this
use of force, whether it may be a shooting or
they died in custody, and will make an inquiry as to, Okay,
who were the deputies involved in this, Was there any
(15:44):
discipline imposed, what did the disciplinary process look like? Or
we can never get to what that disciplinary process or
what the discipline was that was done on a particular
deputy because it's protected by the Police Officer Bill of Rights,
So we just can't get that information. So that just
begins all sorts of consternation between the community and the department,
(16:04):
and it breeds even additional mistrust because we can't let
them know what happened in a particular disciplinary process there.
We have asked on occasion for the names of deputies
who have been involved in shootings, and I will say
the department has given us those names as of late,
but it wasn't always like that. I think it shows
the power of the unions across the state in terms
(16:27):
of how they influence legislative issues involving police officers. There
are some tools in place to uncover some of the
information obscured by pobar, like the Pitches motion. Attorney John Sweeney,
who uncovered the Executioners gang, explains Pitches motions which allowed
you to get the background of police officer if he
(16:50):
has done something similar to your type of case. If
you can tie a nexus between your type of case
of case of fathers, racial animals, or something and this
prior record, you're supposed to be able to get that
to use to show that he asked some quick background
on the Pitches motion. It's named after Peter Pitches, a
former sheriff who also has a detention center in North
(17:12):
l A County named after him. Back in the seventies
four deputies pulled over a man named Cesar Eia Says
ended up in the ICU. The deputies claimed at Cesar
had assaulted them, even though they had no injuries. Says
that it was charged with four felony counts of assaulting
the deputies. His attorney asked for their records in search
(17:34):
of past instances of excessive force. Sheriff Pitches declined to
release the records. That led to Sasar's attorney to ask
a court to subpoena them. Pitches petitioned to stop the subpoena.
The issue went to the California Supreme Court, who sided
with Cessar and his attorney unanimously. None of the justices
(17:56):
agreed with Pitches. But not all pitches motions are grant it.
The motion needs to show good cause and situations aren't
always clear cut. Furthermore, a cops sympathetic judge could just
side with the department and choose not to release anything.
And on top of all of this, there are unions
representing cops. Police unions like the Association of Los Angeles
(18:18):
Deputy Sheriffs are less a union and more a political machine.
For a while, we were talking about this police reform
and trying to stop things like these deputy games, or
stop like some of the corruption that we have. However,
the police unions are very powerful lobbyists. They're very powerful
political voices. I think oftentimes it is it might be
(18:40):
a concept that people agree with, but they are politically
afraid to take it on. A LADS takes part in
two political action committees, the California Law and Order Independent
Expenditure Committee and the Association for Los Angeles Deputy Shares Pack.
They raise and spend millions to influence Angeline Knows, who
(19:00):
then shaped the city. They spent one point five million
dollars in eighteen to help Alex b In Nueva get
elected to sheriff in the first place, allowing deputy gangs
to thrive in They spent nearly a million dollars attempting
to defeat District Attorney George Gascon, who ran on criminal
justice reform. A LADS does actual union stuff like negotiating contracts,
(19:25):
protecting their own and also defending members when they violate
policies or break the law. Throughout the years, they've stopped reform,
protected deputies personnel records from going public, and shunned financial transparency.
There's inherent conflict and how Los Angeles County is represented
in court as well. The county has its own attorneys,
(19:48):
referred to as County Council, who advised government agencies like
the Board of Supervisors and various departments on litigation. They
also represent the Sheriff's Department. I asked Shawn Kennedy, the
chair of the Civilian Oversight Commission, why that's allowed to happen.
I frankly don't know. I I don't think it's right.
I actually wrote a memo to the County Council saying,
(20:11):
I don't think that the CEC can achieve its mission
without its own council helping us achieve our legal goals
instead of thwarting them. So I think it's debatable. But
the response was the sheriffs, the c o C, you
name it, whatever county agency. We are all part of
(20:31):
one county government, Los Angeles County. So there can't be
a conflict of interest because you the c o C,
you're just part of the Board of Supervisors. You're an
agent of the Board of Supervisors, and by representing the
Board of Supervisors, there's no conflict because ultimately they're in
(20:52):
charge of everything. Now, I don't agree with that. I
did not volunteer to become a member of the commission
and to be an agent of the Board of Supervisors,
or to represent the county government structure in any way.
I became a member in hopes that this commission would
(21:14):
reduce the number of shootings of young black and brown
men in l A County. And uh so, if I
am an agent of the Board of Supervisors, I'm a
bad one because and I believe this is true of
the entire commission. None of us view ourselves as trying
(21:35):
to represent or be an agent of the board. We're
all focused on trying to be an independent voice for transparency, collaboration,
and accountability. L A County commission the RAND Institute, a
nonprofit global policy think tank, to study deputy gangs. One
(21:58):
problem with that though the study did not call the
gangs gangs. Instead, the report was titled Understanding Subgroups within
the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. In this survey, RAND
asked one thousand, six hundred and eight deputies and supervisors
if they had been asked to be in deputy gangs.
(22:19):
Nearly two hundred and fifty seven had been asked, with
one four of them saying they've been asked within the
last five years, but no one from Brand asked if
any of these people surveyed were gang members themselves. Then
Sheriff alex Via Nueva held a press conference to discuss
the findings. He was less than enthused. The fact is,
(22:41):
we've been dealing with this issue about subgroups and clicks
for a long long time, and every single one of
my predecessors has kicked the can down the road say
that either didn't exist or did nothing really about it.
But some people, particularly politicians across the street or saying, well,
fifty is by galis on your dime, You're gonna have
(23:01):
to fix it or else. So I think it's unrealistic
and political opportunism on steroids. Look what Rolling Stone said, executioners,
reapers and Bandito's gangs of Sheriff's deputies are wrecking havoc
in l A. Wow. You know what it is. It's
a problem of perception but not reality. And that is
(23:25):
a hard cold fact about this issue. The hard cold
facts are subgroups exist in every large organization, particularly paramilitary organizations.
Be at the U s, military, be IT and firefighting organizations,
fire departments, police departments killed this elice. This is her
statement from the RAND report, and I'm troubled by the
(23:47):
fact that she's troubled. RAND Institute's study supports the decades long,
troubling history of deputy gangs in l A County Sheriff's Department.
It does not support it. She bought for a study,
she got her study, and she's using that as a
launching pad to continue her campaign and that of the
Board of Supervisors to discredit, defund, and delegitimize the Sheriff's
(24:09):
department for their political gain at the expense of public safety.
I don't know if you notice the last little bit
of venom Viennueva had stored up for Hill to Slease.
She's on the Board of Supervisors and has been a
long critic of his regime. Vienneueva and previous sheriffs were
long resistant to oversight in transparency, leading to the creation
(24:31):
of Measure A co authored by Holly Mitchell and hilled
Di Slease. The measure basically allows the board to remove
a sitting sheriff if they had just cause that includes
violation of laws related to sheriff's duties, repeated neglect of
the sheriff's duties, misusing public funds or properties, willful falsification
(24:52):
of documents, or obstruction of an investigation into the department's conduct.
The measure passed late last year and cap off the
question of what's being done about deputy gangs. Deputy gang
hearings Here Shawn Kennedy and Brian kay Williams, again, we
want to shed a light on an issue that has
(25:12):
playing this department for decades. Right, no one can sit
here and say that those deputy gangs do not exist.
We know that they exist, and so we're doing everything
we can to raise the issue, to shed some light
on these gangs, to identify those who are engaged in gangs,
and has set some policies and procedures to finally rid
(25:34):
the department of these gangs and or the actions of
these gangs. Right, it has been a long time coming.
The department has been sued over and over and over
and over again because of rogue deputies doing things that
they shouldn't be doing. It's had an incredibly horrific impact
on the community, on the lives of select members of
(25:54):
our communities. And we just have to stand up and
say enough is enough. Let's finally address this issue. Let's
knowledge is issue. Let's put policies and procedures in place
to make sure that not only we address the current issue,
but that they don't grow in the future, and ultimately
we get rid of this issue from the Ali County
Sheriff's Department. It's a work in progress. Our first thing
(26:15):
is we just wanted to put out there the evidence
because the sheriff is always saying there's no such thing
as a deputy gang. It's a unicorn. It's a problem
of perception, that's not a reality. So the first thing
we wanted to do is we wanted to take it
more seriously factually than prior commissions. And we've had seven hearings,
(26:35):
We're gonna at least have an eighth, and so just
getting the information out there for activists, scholars, government officials,
and that testimony has proved fruitful. As mentioned in episode ten,
these hearings have shed light on the inner workings of
deputy gangs. I have seen that individuals have been retaliated
(26:55):
against publicly without any fear. And I am actually not
external to this department. I'm internal. So I think I'm
within closer reach of any type of retaliation, whether it
be a putting a case on me, um initiative investigation
on me for whatever reason that might pop up. And
uh yeah, definitely from my family, even from deputy gang
(27:17):
members themselves for purposes of candor do you have a tattoo?
And what is the tattoo associated with? It is associated
with a group of deputies from contestation. The name is
the Gladiators. We received tons of questions from listeners, Some
(27:49):
of them I don't have an answer for, like why
so many police officers have violent histories, or what a
future without policing would look like. There are some people
out there like Miriam Cabba, who has written a lot
on that last subject, and I encourage you to read
her books. But there are several questions we got that
I'm going to try my best to answer. The first
(28:11):
one is from Travis, who asks have you uncovered any
evidence that this thing has moved beyond California? A lot
of information about gang activity and police and sheriff's departments
is still obscured, and many gangs that exist are not
labeled as such despite their organized violence. But some stuff
has made its way to the public. Most of the
(28:34):
police gangs we know about are in California. Ben Camacho
and knock l A discovered a gang called Met within
the Santa Anna Police Department. John Pelts and knock l
A says the l A p D has had a
gang like environment for decades. In the nineties, there was
a scandal called Rampart where over seventy officers remplicated in
(28:56):
things like shooting civilians. They would give each other plaque
for shootings, covering up crimes, and planning civilians and things
that were being done by officers, and it cost the
city over million dollars in settlements. And during that scandal
there were officers who were tattooed with Courtney Schools on
their bodies. At the time, it didn't seem like they were,
(29:18):
you know, claiming there were gang members necessarily in the department,
although a lot of critics were saying that one this
was sort of aligning with gay activity and too a
lot of the Rampart officers were also hanging out and
with alleged game members at the time, and they were
implicated in doing activities with them. He's currently investigating a
(29:39):
potential gang. So in late one on social media, someone
had posted a photograph of this menace saying sort of
jolly Roger pirate flag that was being flown over the
seventy seven Street Division station, And after it was posted
on social media, I submitted some public records requests that
asked for photos of the flag, any documentation of the image,
(30:03):
and the images specifically a school and crossbones or in
a crown that sort of smiling and it's in front
of the number seventy seven to indicate the division, and
I think later in early January, I finally got a
response from the department that was very interesting and basically
said they couldn't give me any of that documentation because
the incident was under an internal investigation. I read this
(30:25):
article about the flag, and while I was a report
reporting the article, I had found some more sort of
indicators of what the meaning behind the flag was and
other challenge coins. Challenge coins are these sort of things
that are inspired by like military culture that had passed
around police departments, that like sort of celebrate different divisions
or iconography, and they're typically obviously very pro police and
(30:48):
prideful and especially like pro like police response to violence.
They saw themselves as the vanguard of civility or whatnot.
About two months later, I received a photo from the
same neighborhood, this officer Jason Bias, who is wearing a
badge of the logo on his uniform at a restaurant
at a dinner in the daytime, and I posted the
(31:10):
image online after talking to the witness and verifying it.
And after I did that, it sort of took off.
After I posted the second photo, that department gave me
a response from Captain Stacy Spell, who is the charge
of like the media duties at the department. He gave
me a lengthy response about the uniform basically said that,
like the department understands the imagery is very offensive to
(31:33):
some people. He made some vague suggestion that he was
the officer that I was the foot of was being disciplined,
that they had now were, you know, enforcing some policies
to make sure that no one displays this insignia or
imagery and that the department itself has no relation to it,
and so anyone who would display it, you know, would
(31:53):
be out of policy if they displayed it. Officers with
the Valejo Police Department were accused of ending the badges
of department members who participated in shootings. In July of
the police chief said he launched an independent, third party
investigation into the matter. There has also been reporting that
has uncovered gangs and departments across the United States. A
(32:17):
study conducted by researchers at Northwestern University and the Invisible
Institute identified over one hundred possible so called cruise of
officers in the Chicago police department. Vice News has reported
that criminal cop gangs account for less than four percent
of Chicago's police force, but make up a quarter of
(32:38):
all complaints, settlements, and shootings. Julia Ople asks, from what
little I know? Insurance for police has been offered as
a tool to shift the financial cost of police violence
and corruption off of the taxpayer, But I'm curious so Currently,
cops are largely shielded from personal liability and lawsuits in
(33:00):
state and federal court. L A county picks up most
of the bills associated with attorney and settlement costs, and
when they don't, police unions or independent fundraisers by cops
make up the difference. Police liability insurance offers police even
more protection. If a cop is sued and they have
a policy the insurance company would handle the legal costs
(33:22):
and any settlement the officer is found to be responsible
for paying. The bright side, though, is that with liability insurance,
less taxpayer money will pay for police misconduct. Still, a
recent national study found that the employing public entity paid
point nine eight percent of damage awards in police misconduct cases.
(33:44):
So we have yet to see what effect police liability
insurance has. I spoke with Ambrose Brooks S, the campaign's
coordinator at Dignity and Power Now, which is a grassroots
organization advocating for abolition and police accountability. They tell us
more about settlements and litigation fees and where taxpayer money
(34:04):
comes into the picture. The Board of Supervisors has to
approve every settlement for the Sheriff's department, so these elected
officials know exactly how much money every year is going
to sheriff settlements. In fact, there's a county council report
that comes out every year that breaks down the litigation
fees and expenses in Toe. Out of the fourteen costliest
(34:32):
settlements for the county, eight of them were for the
Sheriff's department, and out of all of the l A
County departments, the Sheriff's department had the costliest litigation expenses
at approximately fifty nine million dollars for that year, and
the next costliest county departments litigation fees were eleven million dollars.
(34:56):
I've seen the community activated showing at the Board of
Supervisors to voice one absolute disgusted at how much money
is going to pay for the settlements, and then also
recommendations for as I said before, maybe that settlement money
(35:19):
should come from sheriff salaries and pensions, and also where
that money could be better spent. Lawyers are really immune
at this point to the emotional impact and to what
families are going through. It's like the same group of
attorneys who are defending the sheriff's department. Here's a question
from rad in Portland's how much overlap have you found
(35:42):
in white supremacist groups and deputy gangs. The origins of
policing has its roots and slave patrols, which is just
what it sounds like. So policing is inextricably linked to
white supremacy. If that seems too far back for you,
just look at the enforcement of Jim Crow laws and
you know recent statistics. A recent Guardian article revealed that
(36:04):
police killed at least one thousand, one hundred and seventy
six people in the United States last year. That's over
three people a day, nearly one hundred every month. Black
people were twenty four percent of victims, while just thirteen
percent of the population. Their data also found that black
(36:26):
and Latino residents are searched at a higher rate than
other races. We found extensive overlap between white supremacist groups
and the deputy gangs everywhere, from l A s d
deputies sworn testimonies to the actions of former Sheriff alex
Via Aueva himself. Let's start with vienn Aueva, who has
repeatedly refused to investigate or root out deputy gangs, including
(36:50):
neo Nazi gangs. He's called black deputies racial slurs, unraveled
anti racist policing reforms, and complained about media coverage of
black people. His campaign manager has a Twitter account where
he publishes blatantly racist jokes, and he quickly promoted other
deputies who advocated for racial profiling. He has ties to
(37:11):
Elsa al Dager, who was known to associate with Holocaust supporters,
three per Centers and Proud Boys, and once bragged that
she organized the largest anti Muslim rally ever in California.
Under Viennueva, white supremacy has ranged from incidents like Deputy
Samuel Aldama saying in sworn testimony that he has ill
(37:34):
feelings toward African Americans, to the continued existence of openly
neo Nazi gangs. Let's take the I P A Gang
for example. The name of the gang itself is an
acronym for inclusive province a Kia and Akia stands for
a Klansman i AM. Three employees of l A. S
(37:55):
D were found on a list of people belonging to
the Oath Keepers, the largest militants alt right organization in
the US. A member of the Civilian Oversight Commission stated
that she was concerned but not surprised, saying, quote, we
have a problem with white supremacist gangs. The tie between
(38:16):
the l A s D and the oath Keepers is
well supported. There are photos of oath Keepers paraphernalia in
the South l A station. There was even an L A.
S D deputy confirmed to be participating in the January
six insurrection in Washington, d C. The list goes on,
but one thing is clear. There are direct links between
(38:38):
the L a s D and white supremacist organizations, and
it doesn't seem like anything is being done to change this.
Sarah Kobayashi asks, with all the preponderance of evidence that
gangs exist and are a massive problem for law enforcement,
what else is being done to hold them to account?
What are their employers doing? Paula Titians community, is the media,
(39:01):
et cetera? Or are they just seen as the cost
of doing business? Maybe just an alternative arm of the
legal system. Although there is clear evidence that deputy gangs exists,
the l A s D refuses to take any internal action,
instead promoting gang members and outside actors do not have
enough power and reach to create any significant change. It's
(39:24):
key to note that higher ranking members of the l
A s D are instrumental to the existence of deputy gangs.
Sean Kennedy is the chair of the Civilian Oversight Commission.
I wanted to play some clips from my interview with
him to help explain why deputies haven't been penalized. Here's
what Shaun had to say about Viennueva's inaction towards deputy gangs.
(39:46):
We have been trying to get Sheriff Viennueva under oath
answering questions about deputy gangs for a very long time,
and he has invented every excuse a reason in the
book for not doing so, and it has used his
county funded lawyers to help him, and he's been very
(40:07):
successful at it. Vienn Aueva former under Sheriff Timothy Murakami
and others have used legal tactics to guard themselves from
any sort of cooperation with the CEOC. The other thing
is regarding Sheriff vien Aueva and under Sheriff of Murakami,
they have been especially aggressive in their legal tactics. We
(40:30):
were on the eve of having full briefing on a
contempt hearing when under Shriff Murakami filed some kind of
claim to recuse the judge. Then we went before a
new judge and that judge set the hearing off into December.
The CEOC demanded that we try to have it accelerated,
(40:53):
and apparently the new judge wouldn't do that. So the
judges claim their calendars are very full, and so every
time a tactic is employed by the sheriff, which is
his right, it results in more and more delays. It
is very troubling and you have every right to ask,
(41:17):
like what's going on. So another reason nothing has been
done is that, unfortunately the system is slow and bureaucratic
and not equipped to take quick direct action on urgent
issues like l A s D gangs. Viennueva and others
in leadership positions have continued to prevent any investigation or
insight into the deputy gangs. They banned Inspector General Max
(41:40):
Huntsman from all l A s D facilities when he
tried to look into the gangs and harassed and intimidated
journalists reporting on the issue like myself instead of doing
anything about it. So, because of this impediment from the top,
it's very difficult for anyone within l A s D
to do anything to stop deputy gang. To make batters worse,
(42:01):
many deputies are part of unions that will fight subpoena
is placed on members and protect them from being fired.
Deputies that try to resist the gangs from the inside
are often threatened and harassed. Their tires are slashed and
dead rats are left by their vehicles. They are intimidated
into not speaking out, even fearing for their lives. Families
(42:24):
of victims of deputy gang violence are often the ones
most determined to speak out, but even they are constantly
harassed by deputies. Some, understandably, fearing for their own safety
and family members safety, decide to stay quiet. Some are
pushed to sign n d as promising they won't discuss
what happened. Others, like the family of Anthony Vargas, struggle
(42:46):
to expose deputies who have committed murder, but face intimidation
and multi year long wait times for court cases and
investigations to wrap up. There has been a lot of
recent media coverage on l A s D gangs from
me and other journalists like Eileen check Median and Kate Cagel,
but because of systemic dysfunction and racism, inefficient government regulatory systems,
(43:09):
and the dismissal and resistance of l A s D leadership,
there's only a limited amount media coverage can do in
affecting immediate and concrete change. David of Augusta, Georgia says,
are these people not screening for sociopathy? The short answer,
they are given a psychological exam, but this does not
prevent them from inflicting violence onto residents once they are
(43:32):
officially a deputy. To go a little deeper into the
screening and application process, there are several steps that an
applicant must go through in order to become a deputy sheriff. First,
there are some basic requirements regarding citizenship, education, physical condition, vision, hearing,
and a couple of other things. Then you have to
(43:52):
submit an application, then get a score of at least
sevent on an exam, which tests things like data interpretation, reasoning, spelling,
and vocabulary. Next is an interview where you'll be assessed
on your experience, motivation, interpersonal skills, and community involvement. Finally,
after a background check, you'll go through a physical fitness
(44:14):
test and get a medical and psychological evaluation. The psychological
evaluation isn't a screening for mental health illnesses. Rather, it
is usually composed of a self interview, multiple choice questions,
and an interview with a psychologist. Candidates are asked about
topics like history of drug use, personal biases, integrity, impulse control,
(44:37):
appropriate attitudes about sexuality and honesty. Given the stories you've
heard about rampant racism, sexual harassment, fist fights at department events,
and lying about ghost guns, it seems this examination has
failed to screen out deputy gang members. To say The
least one instance where this system went wrong was an
(44:57):
Alameda in northern California, UH just a couple of months ago.
In September, forty seven deputies were stripped of their guns
and arrest powers because an audit revealed they had failed
their psychological exams. This was ten per cent of their
entire force, and they will still receive their pay and benefits.
(45:19):
The internal audit was triggered by a deputy's murder of
a couple in their home earlier in September. A spokesperson
for the Alameda County Sheriff's Department had said earlier that
the deputy charged with the killing had passed his psychological test.
Numerous other sources, however, said he had failed, but was
still hired and given weapons. The spokesperson said the department
(45:42):
overlooked the quote not suitable results and candidates psychological exams
because they desperately needed to hire more deputies, and that
the whole incident was quote not as bad as it sounds.
If there are people in the Alameda County Sheriff's Department
willing to overlook not doable results on psychological evaluations, chances
(46:03):
are the same oversight airs occur in other counties, especially
when key players are known for other instances of corruption, violence,
gang activity, and mismanagement. Sometimes it can even be advantageous
for them. Outside of psychological screenings, law enforcement systems are
known to screen out candidates who have i c s
(46:23):
that are too high. In two thousand, a man in
Connecticut sued because he was rejected from a job as
a police officer given that he scored thirty three points
on a test for which the department only accepts candidates
who scored twenty. To the score on the test translates
to i Q. The police department's rationale was that officers
(46:45):
with i q s above a certain level will get
bored with the job and leave. While this may be true,
it also has the effect of putting people with lower
i q s in positions of power with deadly weapons.
Although i Q is in no way associate aided with
mental illnesses like sociopathy, this case demonstrates how police can
select for who they want in departments with their own
(47:08):
preferences and desires in mind, rather than the public's. Stephen
Elias wants to know have any notable Sheriff's gang members
moved into l A p D. I'm not sure about
l A p D, but a few deputy gang members
have moved on to other departments, and some even run them.
One such deputy is John Chapman, who is a self
(47:29):
admitted tattooed Viking. He's currently an under sheriff with the
Clark County Sheriff's Department in Washington and spent some time
with the Vancouver, Washington Police Department two. But before that,
between nineteen eighty three and nine four, Chapman was an
l A s D Deputy sheriff. In his eleven year
career with l A s D, Chapman was part of
(47:50):
a group of deputies that arrested, imprisoned, and beat Lloyd
Polk for over seventeen days. We talked about this incident
in episode two. Chapman was also part of a group
of deputies that shot and killed then twenty one year
old Hong Kyo Lee. Deputies chased Hung Pyo for fifteen miles.
He never got over thirty five miles per hour. Once
(48:13):
pulled over, Chapman and other deputies shot him as two
Long Beach Police officers stood nearby. The deputies claimed Ung
Pyo reversed, making them fear for their lives, but the
Long Beach police officers say they never saw the car
back up. Furthermore, Hung Kyo's car was found over one
feet in front of the spot where the shooting took place.
(48:36):
The deputy's report stated that a shot and dying Lee
was able to shift from reverse to drive and go
that distance and crash. Hung Pio's brother Paul, told The
l A Times that he didn't buy the deputies versions
of things. He said, quote, it doesn't really make sense.
You got eight bullets in your body and you can
(48:56):
do that. My dad can't understand why there were bruises
on my brother's face. There's many other instances of Chapman
allegedly violating the Fourth Amendment, harming people, holding people at gunpoint,
and falsifying warrants and reports. And again he's now helping
to run the Clark County Sheriff's Department. Other sheriff's deputies
(49:18):
mentioned in this series include Victor Clay, an alleged grim
reaper we discussed in episode three, who is now chief
of the Harvard University Police Department. We reached out to
Clay for comment and he declined. And then there's Robert Johnson,
who former deputy Randy Higgins says as a grim reaper.
He is now the sheriff of Santa Clara County. Johnson
(49:40):
denies that he is a member of the gang. Olivia
asks are these officers all men? Are there women officers
in these gangs? And last, these officers families are they
still with these gang members? The vast majority of officers
and deputy gangs are men. Some gangs, such as the Bandidos,
(50:01):
don't even allow women or black people to become full members. However,
some women still become associates. Some examples are Sergeant Angelica
Patty Estrada, who was called the Pink Hand and was
regarded as the brain of the Bandidos operations. Carrie Robless
Placentia was also affiliated with the Bandidos. She was trained
(50:22):
by gang member Vincent Moran. She has also been photographed
holding paraphernalia with the Fort Apache logo. Of course, many
women resist the deputy gangs they find themselves surrounded by.
When they begin their jobs as deputies, they might face
inappropriate touching, request for sexual favors, and other harassment. If
(50:43):
they refuse, they might even be given extra work moved
to a different station for no fault of their own,
threatened both verbally and with objects like dead rats, and
further harassed. Regarding the spouses of male deputy gang members,
some stay with them for various reasons, including a lack
of knowledge about their husband's activities, belief and shared racist
(51:05):
assumptions and glorification of deputy gangs, or simply providing for
their families and themselves. Some spouses do get divorced, particularly
because the values that deputy gang members hold translate to
the home as well. I talked to his sham Ali Bob,
the violence prevention program manager with Contra Costa Health Services,
(51:26):
about why cops tend to be more violent. Why is
there a higher propensity to be physically abusive? Well, I
think that what I hear on the street is that
a lot of people that may be feeling insecurity or
frustration with their life circumstances may be drawn to positions
(51:49):
that imbue them with authority. Ali Bob says those great
benefits play into why some people may stick with an
abuse of spouse. These spouses are more or less like survivors, right,
They're either survivors or their witnesses to stuff. It's undeniable
that a lot of these spouses will be in a
position where their partner is the main breadwinner, there's the
(52:13):
sole source of income. They probably get a wonderful pension,
great benefits, zero copay for dental and vision and medical,
and so a partner with insurance will sort of gain
a leverage over their partner who may not have as
good of a job. And so often systems in place
(52:35):
that are supposed to help people experiencing domestic violence and
abuse can end up doing more harm, especially when people
working within them allow them to. In our interview, Ali
Bob's book candidly about the police officers he speaks to
and what they say about people they interact with. I
know a police officer who really doesn't like homeless people
(52:57):
with children. He tend to vilify those parents. He thinks
that those parents are doing something wrong, that it's a crime,
and that they should be locked up in all this
other stuff. He did not say if he ever challenged
that cop on those beliefs, And even after hearing that
kind of prejudice consistently from police, Ala Bob still believes
(53:18):
that cops are the best answer to these problems. Police
are usually like the best funded public system that victims
and other people will run into. They're not preventers. They
are not funded to prevent bad things from happening. And
if police aren't there to prevent crime, what are they doing.
(53:40):
Janelle from Southern California asks, can you explain station numbers
in relation to a station tattoo? Like what does a
station number signify? And how is the station number assigned
to a police department. Every station has an identifying number
used during radio communications, which is synonymous with the station's
idea any it's used internally among the employees and officers.
(54:04):
When gangs are created, these station numbers are incorporated into
the tattoo as a form of identification and pride. There's
an understanding that if they all have the same tattoo
and shed blood together, they're bonded as brothers forever. A
question from Ellen what is life like for non gang
member deputies? Lieutenant Sidra Sharad Strong opened up about life
(54:27):
inside l a s D outside of a deputy gang
in episode five. Here's more from her from a documentary
she put together about her ongoing issues with the department
under former Sheriff Alex Vianueva. I joined the military at
a young age, and I've been with the Los Angeles
County Sheriff's Department for twenty six years. I was floored
(54:47):
by the vile bitterness of the incompetent leaders, not real leaders,
but pretentious, greedy staff members interested only in climbing to
the next rank or covering up their incompetence with lives.
Ellen also asks what is the size of the non
gang population or is it basically everyone? A former Sheriff's
(55:07):
Department member testified to the Civilian Oversight Commission that about
fifteen of deputies are participating in deputy gangs. Some current
deputies I've spoken to say that everyone inside the department
is aware of them. Here's a question from Breva Singh.
Now that Robert Luna is the new sheriff, are you
(55:28):
any more hopeful about l a s d s desire
to deal with these gangs? Here's Ambrose from Dignity and Power.
Now again, it's like the expectations are incredibly low, and
we have to think about the fact that Alex be
in a Wava ran on an anti corruption platform as well.
Luna has been in office for what one month at
this point, and there hasn't been anything radical done. Yet
(55:50):
it would have been cool if something some beyond symbolic
gesture was made in the first month that shows his
commitment to rooting out deputy gangs. And but the reality
of the deputy gangs is like they're going to exist
with or without Robert Luna. And there are already policies
and procedures within the Sheriff's Department that supposedly outlaw gangs.
(56:13):
They've been able to thrive and fester within the department
in the face of these policies. I remember Robert Luna
saying something that like, I'm gonna look through the organizational
components of the department and look through the policies and
see whether or not things need to change. Like it
will take a lot, I think, to even give hope,
to give even the smallest bit of hope. Marlene asks,
(56:34):
is Biden aware and can we pressure him to do
something before the election. Congresswoman Maxine Waters has sent several
letters to the Department of Justice demanding an investigation. She
hasn't heard back yet. Finally, the million dollar question from
David Williams, Hi miscastle. I guess my question is why
isn't this a federal investigation. Why haven't the feds taken
(56:57):
over the department via consent decree? Dave that the short
answer is, I have no idea. If you are a
federal agent listening to this, please get back to me.
I used to add a whole hood. No, fuck the police.
I'm a fucking trophy. You've been listening to a tradition
of violence. History of deputy gangs in the Los Angeles
County Sheriff's Department. Thank you so much, hosted an executive
(57:20):
produced by Series, Castle, music by Yellow Hill and Steels.
If you're enjoying a tradition of violence, please give us
a five star rating and leave a written review. For
breaking news and updates on deputy gangs, follow at l
A s D Gangs on social media. To support series's
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A s D Gangs Patreon. This is funn
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