Unmasking the Shadows: Cerise Castle on Deputy Gangs and Justice

Join us on the latest episode of the Strangest Fruit Podcast as one of the most important journalists of our generation, Cerise Castle, sits down with Didontae Farmer. Produced by Heardstudio @heardstudio Cerise Castle is a Los Angeles-based journalist specializing in arts & culture, civil rights, criminal justice, and human interest stories. She is renowned for writing the first history of deputy gangs inside the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and for creating, producing, and hosting “A Tradition of Violence,” a podcast detailing the history and criminal activity of these gangs. Her groundbreaking reporting earned her the 2022 International Women in Media Foundation’s Courage Award, the American Journalism Online Award for Best Use of Public Records, and the American Mosaic Journalism Prize. In 2024, Castle was a Poynter Fellow at Yale University. Castle has produced and hosted segments for the Emmy-award-winning nightly news program, VICE News Tonight, NPR, and the nationally syndicated radio program Marketplace. She has also produced podcast series for Audible, iHeartMedia, and Wondery. Her reporting and commentary have been featured in ABC, Autre, Capital & Main, The Daily Beast, The Los Angeles Times, The LAnd, Los Angeles Magazine, MTV, National Public Radio (NPR), Salon, and Vanity Fair. Tune in for an insightful and revealing conversation that dives deep into Cerise Castle’s impactful work and the vital issues she covers. Don’t miss this compelling episode! 🔔 Subscribe for more thought-provoking discussions and interviews. 👍 Like this video if you found it informative. 💬 Comment below with your thoughts and questions. #CeriseCastle #StrangestFruitPodcast #Journalism #CivilRights #CriminalJustice #Heardstudio

 

Welcome back to the Strangest Fruit Podcast! In this episode, we have the honor of hosting the remarkable journalist, Miss Cerise Castle. Join us as we dive into her compelling life story and her groundbreaking work exposing deputy gangs within the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department.

From her challenging childhood in California to her journey in journalism, Cerise opens up about the experiences that shaped her and the pivotal moments that led her to uncover the hidden truths about law enforcement. Discover how a high school teacher's unexpected ultimatum set her on a path to Emerson College and beyond.

Listen in as Cerise discusses the deputy gangs, including the notorious Linwood Vikings and the 3,000 Boys, and their impact on communities. Learn about her relentless pursuit of truth and the personal sacrifices she has made to bring these stories to light.

This episode is a deep dive into the systemic issues within law enforcement, the power of journalism, and the ongoing fight for justice and accountability. Tune in for an eye-opening conversation that sheds light on the dark corners of our society.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Music.

(00:28):
All right. Good morning. Good evening. Good night. I don't know what time it
is and what part of the world you're at, but welcome back to the Strangest Fruit Podcast.
And we have a very special guest today.
And it is Miss Cerise Castle. There we go.
You got it. How you doing? I'm doing good. How about yourself? I'm good. I'm blessed.
I'm all right. You know, this is amazing right here because you the voice.

(00:54):
Thank you. You got a special job that you have to do in this world.
Yeah. And I tell people often that superheroes don't wear capes.
No. We wear, or I wear jeans.
You wear jeans.
So how old are you? I'm going to be 31 in April of 2024, which is when we're recording this. So old.

(01:20):
I'm a good 33. Oh, yeah. You're so old.
Native California? Yeah, born and raised. Born and raised. How did you like that?
I love it. I've lived in Massachusetts. I've lived in New York.
I lived in Amsterdam for a little bit, but I always come back to L.A.
So L.A. is your favorite? L.A. is my favorite.
Tell us, how was life for you growing up?

(01:42):
Not great. Honestly, I had a pretty rough childhood. I didn't really grow up at home.
I had different foster families that I lived with mostly on and off.
I left home for good when I was like 16, 17.
And yeah, I mean, it was tough. It's a tough way for a kid to grow up.

(02:03):
What's the geographics of where we're, paint a picture of where we're at so we can.
Yeah. So I grew up, I moved around a lot.
I probably spent the most amount of time consistently in like Costa Mesa, Huntington Beach.
That's where I went to school. I went to a lot of private schools down there,
mostly like Christian schools.

(02:23):
My mom was very big on education.
Christian school? Yeah. Private school? Yeah.
And then I went to public school in Huntington Beach. I went to a high school
called Ocean View High School.
How did that change? Was it a big difference?
From private to public, the private schools were a lot smaller. Yeah.

(02:45):
The kids, though, I don't know. I feel like we got up to more madness in private
school than we did in public school. Really? Straight up. Yeah.
I probably started drinking when I was like 12, 13. In private school? In private school.
There were these parents that would just let the kids have these ragers,

(03:08):
and the parents would be right there with us drinking.
Drinking it was pretty i don't know if i can cuss on
here but no i don't give a damn oh it was pretty fucked up yeah wow
yeah the cheerleader i did a lot of ap and ib classes living like a double life
i'm getting a lot of vibes of like a mix of different cultures here yeah my

(03:31):
dad is he's a white guy he's actually from the city of compton the way you said it Well.
A lot of people like don't really know that like Compton used to be a very like
white city for a long time.
Named after a white man. Named after a white man. Farmland.
Yes. Yeah. My dad, he grew up there in 1950s. He lived there until probably the early 70s.

(03:57):
He had horses in his backyard. They still have people with horses in Compton.
Yeah. My young man over here, my guy, Young Spill, he seen the horses just riding
through the street and he was like, Holy shit, what the fuck?
Yeah, that's what we do. We ride horses in the street in Compton, baby.
And I was like, that's just regular, bro. Yeah, it's regular.
Yeah. And my mom, she's Black. She's from the Bronx.

(04:19):
Yeah. So two people from two great cities. Yeah. How did that work? Yeah. Hmm.
Yeah, that does seem like a nice little mix. I can see how that adds up now.
All right. I can see how that goes together.
And so did you have a good relationship with them later on in the years as you got older or no?
No, not really. My dad unfortunately passed away when I was eight,

(04:42):
but we had a very close relationship until that point.
I still miss him a lot. But my mom, we haven't spoken since I was probably like 18.
We never really had a good relationship or anything.
So we're not in touch. But I am really close with my grandmother, which is her mom.
Still got somebody. Yeah, I do.

(05:04):
So high school, you're running wild.
Running wild. Running wild. In a very like manicured way. Yeah.
What happens where you have that change and
you're like all right this is where my life is leading
what what was the causative factors that's a great question so honestly like
just like growing up the way I did not really having consistent like home life

(05:29):
consistent like not really having a good relationship with my mom there was
a lot of abuse in the home all that to say like I didn't really I didn't really love myself.
I didn't really think that my life had any like meaning or purpose.
And I, a lot of my friends, when I was in high school, died,

(05:49):
they were murdered, very like violent, just like street violence.
And I didn't really think that I was long for this world.
I was just kind of like resigned to the fact that I would probably like die before I was 21.
So you were living in just constant fear not
so much fear i i just like didn't care

(06:10):
i didn't really care about like my life
or like what i was gonna do i didn't think i didn't think i had anything to
contribute and i was just kind of like ready to like burn out quickly i guess
i thought i was gonna end up like a lot of my friends yeah yeah i thought i
would probably get like killed or yeah,

(06:30):
probably get killed or something before I was 21. And then something happened.
And then something happened. Yeah. I mean, it's actually, it's kind of a, it is a sweet story.
I haven't talked to this person like since this happened, but I don't know, maybe she'll see this.
I had an English teacher at my high school and she was actually friends with

(06:50):
the, I lived with a friend my last year of high school after I left home.
And the mom of the house was friends with this English teacher.
They went to AA together and they were talking about me.
And both of them weren't really happy with the fact that I didn't have plans
for college or anything that I was just kind of like, I'm just going to,
you know, like work this retail job that I have and do whatever.

(07:15):
And they came up with a scheme. So when I went to school, I think this was probably
like October of my senior year. Good scheme or bad scheme?
It was, I mean, it kind of pissed me off. But in the long term, it was a good scheme.
They were like, the teacher told me, she sat me down and was like,
look, I've been talking to my friend about you.
And we decided that if you don't apply to at least five colleges,

(07:37):
I'm going to fail you from this class and you won't be able to graduate.
You'll have to repeat your senior year.
They both knew that I really wanted to get my high school degree and I didn't
want to be a fifth year senior.
So I was kind of upset because I was like, you know, it's my choice if I don't
want to go to college. Like, who are you to tell me that I need to go?
And I was, you know, kind of upset about it for a little while.

(07:58):
But I did get the applications in and I was accepted to some schools.
Which ones? The first one that I was accepted to was Emerson College.
I did get rejected from USC, which is where I really wanted to go.
But I actually was asked to be a fellow with them last year.
So I've technically now gone to USC.
I've also taught at USC. Oh, you taught there? Yeah.

(08:20):
So it's funny how life— A little bit. A little bit. Who says that? A little bit.
All right. Yeah. So Emerson was the first one that accepted me.
And when I got accepted, I told the mom of the house. house and she tracked,
I hadn't spoken to my grandmother at that point in like 10 years.

(08:42):
And she found my grandmother and told her, you know, she's been accepted to college.
Like right now we don't, I personally, she didn't have a way to pay for me to
go, but she was like, you know, like, I really think it would be good for her
to go and like, you know, get out of California and just see the world and see what life has to offer.
And my grandmother was like, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And she paid for

(09:03):
my first semester of college and I went.
And what did you major in? Journalism. Journalism.
Who are some of your go-to people that you look up to that inspires you with journalism?
Oh, okay. Great question. I've always been interested in journalism,
probably dating back to when I was a little kid.

(09:25):
My dad always used to watch this program called The News Hour on PBS,
and I really liked it. There was this... You watched it?
I've always been a nerd. That's the other thing. Like I grew up listening to
like NPR, watching like the news. The One Piece Report?
Yeah. Yeah. You know what I'm talking about. It's always been interesting to
me. So Jim Lehrer, he was the anchor when I was a kid.

(09:48):
Gwen Ifill, she's one of my favorite journalists of all time.
Katie Couric. I love Katie Couric.
Lisa Ling, another one that I love. Ann Curry, she's actually the person that
she told me to be a journalist when I was in eighth grade.
So it's really thanks to her that i'm sitting what
about robin roberts robin roberts actually

(10:11):
spoke at my college graduation and i got out
of line to get my from getting my diploma to go up to her and to tell her thank
you did you make it to her i did and she gave me a hug and everything it was
really nice robin is nice yeah so you leave college how did you prepare to leave college,

(10:32):
Oh, I didn't really prepare.
I didn't think I was going to go until I was probably in Boston.
I didn't think it was actually going to happen. I didn't take it seriously, really, at all.
That whole summer, I remember, I was just really zoned out, smoking.

(10:53):
Drinking, not really taking it seriously.
Seriously I didn't think it was real I was like there's no
way that like someone is gonna pay like twenty
five thousand dollars for me to go to this school there's no
way but it happened so I
got there and I was just like oh wow okay like we're here what was what is your

(11:14):
particular angle in journalism what is your niche what is this this thing that
you do that basic magic for you I really like getting to know people and sharing
their stories one thing with
the stories that I do.
And this goes back, like, I was part of my high school newspaper.
I was doing reporting in college. All the stories that I do tend to,

(11:37):
I think, focus on communities or people that don't typically have,
aren't typically given the space in, you know, newspapers.
Television broadcasts to really speak about their stories and share their realities.
When I was growing up reading the newspaper about, you know,
neighborhoods that I lived in, about people that, like, you know,

(12:00):
I share a lot of commonalities with, the coverage was always very slanted.
Like, when you read about...
Growing up, when I was reading about things happening in, like,
West Adams, for example, where I lived for a little bit, it was always,
like, there's so much crime.
There's, you know, people are killing each other. Da-da-da-da-da-da-da.
And that wasn't really, like, most of what I saw.

(12:21):
Like, what I experienced was, like, you know, loving neighbors,
beautiful community, people helping each other out.
Like, life wasn't just, you know, doom and gloom all the time.
So you just said, you guys are at this extreme, let me go to this extreme.
Yeah, well, not extreme, but just kind of just like telling the full story.

(12:42):
Like even when you're telling a story about, you know, like one thing that we
see in the news a lot, like lately is like retail theft, right?
Organized retail crime, smash and grab.
And the stories are all just kind of like, oh, this is so terrible.
All these like young people are just out here stealing.
There's a lot missing from that. If I were going to do that story,

(13:04):
you have to ask yourself the question, what drives somebody to that point to do that?
What are they missing in their life where they feel like they need to go take seven pairs of jeans?
Why is that the method that they're making money?
Why is the need so great that it needs to be there? What's going on in their life?
What is their trauma that has driven them to that point? I think that's a much

(13:28):
more responsible way to tell a story.
And then also in doing that, you have to look at like, well,
we're talking about retail theft.
What about these companies stealing from the workers, time theft, wage theft?
You know, I'm sure that plays a role at some point in the equation that leads
people to, you know, do a smash and grab.
So, how do you ascertain the confidence enough to take on a group of individuals

(13:57):
that have the power to kill, the right to kill?
I honestly just like stopped giving a fuck at a certain point.
I, in 2020, I just went through a lot. I mean, a lot.
We all went through a lot in 2020. It was a really traumatic year for everyone.
For me specifically, I just kind of felt like I was at the end of my rope professionally.

(14:22):
I was working at a local radio station here in LA and I had been there for about
a year and I had a horrible time.
It was just a lot of like racism that i was dealing with a lot of homophobia a lot of transphobia,
and just dealing with that every day like it does take an effect on like your

(14:42):
health on your mental health so i was already in a bad place the pandemic happened we were on lockdown.
I was never really locked down because as a
reporter we were allowed to like go around and move like still
do our job because people needed to get the news but I
mean just I don't know seeing all of that I had

(15:03):
10 people in my family die from COVID in 2020
that was really intense George Floyd
was murdered we saw so many murders that summer
in a very like public way and for
me at work watching all this happen and just
feeling like the coverage wasn't being done the way
it needed to it it was it was driving

(15:24):
me crazy and so for
take to answer your question like what does it take you how do
you get to that point I I just like didn't care anymore I was like there's so
much like bad shit happening like I it doesn't make sense for me to like hold
back or to that like sense of like self-preservation was just like gone it was

(15:47):
like if I do this thing And like, if it brings harm to me,
like, I don't care anymore at this point because there's so much bigger stuff
to come from me doing that.
With that being said, who are the Linwood Vikings?
The Linwood Vikings are the first deputy gang that I ever heard of.

(16:07):
They were really big in the 90s when I was growing up.
They were a white supremacist neo-Nazi gang that was founded at the Linwood
Sheriff's Station. It was mostly white members, mostly men, but they did have a couple of women.
I know that they had at least one Black deputy sheriff that was a tattooed Viking.

(16:28):
Oh, that is a contradiction to what a Black man is supposed to be. Wow.
That takes some serious dedication to a cloth. So, I mean, but they do identify
with their own identity. So that makes sense.
Yeah. How did you come about the knowledge of the Linwood Vikings?

(16:49):
I heard about the Linwood Vikings when I was a kid.
So in 1995, I think I might be wrong on this, but it was around there.
There was a class action lawsuit filed by the people of Linwood.
And that's actually a really beautiful story.
And to me, it speaks to a lot of the themes that I try to get in in my reporting.

(17:10):
Reporting that class action lawsuit came together because of two like local gangs that were.
They from what i understand they did have beef with each
other but that beef was also really stirred up by the sheriff's
department instigating and doing things
to make it seem that the to

(17:31):
make it seem like there was a lot more bad blood than there really was
from what i've been able to ascertain you know 30
years later and you know
the gang saw that you know this was the sheriffs that were
doing it and it was the linwood vikings that were doing it
and they came together and they made
a truce and they said okay now that

(17:53):
we have this truce in place let's go after them in a
court of law and put an end to this and they
filed this class action lawsuit with you know
over a hundred people telling their stories about the
torture that they were subjected to at the hands
of the vikings and it made a
splash in the papers at the time and a

(18:14):
lot of people were talking about it and i'm guessing that's how it ended up
that's how i ended up hearing about it as a small child in school we would have
you know dare program pal program the deputies come in and talk to us Dare to
resist drugs and violence.
Yes, yes. They would talk to us and be like, look, like, don't join a gang.

(18:36):
You know, don't be in a gang. It's bad. Like, you'll go to jail.
And at the same time, I'm hearing, you know, teachers. I'm hearing parents.
I'm hearing other kids be like, well, you know, watch out for deputies that
are white and bald because they're probably Vikings.
And this is what they do. They, like, come after us.

(18:58):
And it just didn't make sense to me. that i could
have you know sheriff's deputies sitting in front of me telling
me like you know stay out of gang all gang members are
bad but he's in a gang and you know he's unfairly targeting like people that
look like me just because we're black like what age were you at this time and
how did you process that like how how does how do you process that like it's

(19:23):
i must have been probably like.
Six when this was happening like first grade is like when i clearly remember,
like thinking like this just like doesn't make sense like
you process it like like in a child's way
like oh that just like kind of doesn't make sense but it but it lived in me
like it was a question that i always had and i can remember like going to the

(19:47):
library and like looking at the paper and being like oh like linwood viking
like okay and looking to try to find more like Like, I remember always looking for,
like, is there a book on this on deputy gangs?
Like, I just I just want to know more. I don't really understand.
It doesn't it just didn't compute. Like, because I would, you know,
see these deputies like targeting people in my community.

(20:10):
I've had friends that have been like taken in jail. Like when we were kids,
when we were kids, I had like, you know, like young men that I was cool with,
like just being like snatched up and like taken away to like NIDOR.
Just for like being friends with you
know somebody and like all of a sudden they're a gang member

(20:31):
just because you grew up on this block like oh all
of a sudden you're a criminal like it just didn't it just didn't compute that
is so interesting because we interviewed a cop here the former cop and i said
and i asked him with with the a law or a penal code like 186.22b Criminal Street Terror Street Gang Act.

(20:54):
Is that considered a secret weapon throughout any type of police law?
Because you put that on, that's automatic 10 years.
They started doing that, they started doing that, but they also started doing
the conspiracy stuff in the 90s. Yeah, that was with Operation Safe Streets in 94.
Yeah, they started doing the conspiracies. They started catching conspiracies,
they'll fabricate injunctions and all that.
Injunctions, so they started booking. That was a secret weapon bar.
Yeah, that was a secret weapon. Echo Park, all these neighborhoods,

(21:15):
they'll get hit with this, with this new.
Conspiracy stuff so they could book like 10 of them guys on on one
rifle one one call bot to shoot
somebody he admitted to it he said that's that's one
of our biggest tools because we know with that alone we can
put you away for 10 years yeah and it's never going to come off of you so that's
and then that carries on when you go into state penitentiary you have to register

(21:40):
with the fbi as a terrorist so all of it just adds up adds up adds up and it's
just the money schemes Yeah.
So, who are the 3,000 boys? I feel like they're probably one of the most dangerous,
I think, because they are in the jails. It's a deputy gang that's in the jails.

(22:03):
And they work in the 3,000 block at Men's Central Jail.
And I say they're the most dangerous because when you're a sheriff's deputy,
the first assignment that you get after you graduate the academy is working in the jails.
And when you're going from the academy into the jails into this environment where,
one it's a deputy gang two just like

(22:25):
the the number like the amount of violence that happens in
the jails like his it's unmatched like i i personally i haven't been to mcj
i've talked to a lot of people that are still there people that have been in
and out and it sounds like hell like You have no bearing of time, day, night.

(22:47):
You don't know when the time changes.
It's never quiet. The smell is horrible. The mental health dudes,
that's just a whole other story.
You got naked dudes laying around on the floors on top of each other's and safety smocks.
It's just, it's horrible. Yeah. I've heard there's no like running water.

(23:07):
No, it'll be flooded, rats running everywhere.
And you just sit in there all day. Yeah. So then you have the cops.
If you refuse to go somewhere, they're waiting after court.
They're waiting with batons, knee pads on, helmets, shoulder pads.
And there's like 15 of them. And they're like waiting for you to refuse.
And you have about 10, 15 dudes. As a kid, if you talked on the bus when you

(23:31):
got to Men's Central Jail, we were being tried as adults, so we had to ride with the sheriffs.
If you talked on the bus, they would kick you off the front step off the bus
and pick you up, take your socks
off, and make you walk through the transportation depot with no socks on.
Oh, my God. So we're going through that as kids. So we're being hogtied,
all this type of stuff. I mean, come on now.

(23:53):
We know about the headhunters. I'm pretty sure you know who Blondie is. Mm-hmm. Yes.
Can you explain to people who Blondie is? Well, from what I understand,
she was like kind of this like notorious like female cop. Blondie was one of the males.
Oh, one of the males. Okay. He worked
out of the sheriff's. He was in the sheriff's and the cop and police.
He was the original hop out boy. Okay. And that's what made that,

(24:16):
they brought that to the map.
Yeah. And that's when, you know, they wanted to get the police out of there.
So what was the case that was the breaking point where you were like,
I'm all in, when you said your big case, the one that went to all the media
and everybody was like, whoa, who is this? And what is she talking about?
So the story that I did was in 2021, I just sat down for, I think, I don't know.

(24:44):
Six months let me count yeah
so like six months i just like sat down and did a
bunch of research on deputy gangs and i
wrote a 15 part series that told everything
that i had been able to find out i was able to trace the
origins of deputy gangs back to the 1970s and
i identified 18 different deputy

(25:07):
gangs within the sheriff's department and identified like
10 of them for us and their geographics where
they're at yeah well from what i've what
i've been told like since is that there are deputy
gangs in every station at that point i had 18 throughout
the county i mean pretty much at every station the
ones that were missing were probably like industry marina del rey malibu but

(25:31):
for the most part a presence in every station still active still active yeah
yeah there i mean that's the thing about deputy gangs like usually they'll they'll
be formed at one station like the Linwood Vikings, for example,
that's actually a great example because it hits on a lot of things.
So the Linwood Vikings were started at the Linwood station and they closed the
Linwood station kind of as a result of that lawsuit.

(25:55):
It wasn't part of the settlement, but the lawsuit that I was speaking about
earlier did contribute heavily to that station being closed.
When that station closed, all of those Vikings needed to be reassigned somewhere else.
So a lot of them went to the century station and they
brought that deputy gang culture with them
and a couple of years after they were there a

(26:16):
new deputy gang was formed a gang called the regulators that you're
probably familiar with and people get
promoted so maybe they'll go to another unit so
i'm not the only one who has noticed that why is it that
cops or officers who get reprimanded always
seem to get promoted immediately after for doing
some foul shit yeah for lack of better words is

(26:39):
that a thing is there some type of correlation with that i
think so i haven't been able to find anything on paper yet but yeah i mean it
seems like there absolutely is a correlation with you know a deputy killing
someone and then you know six months later getting you know a medal of honor
and a promotion i just I just did a story in January about a,

(27:01):
this was like some deputy on deputy gang violence.
Basically, this deputy gang drove
out to the desert and they had this like overnight camping trip planned.
And during the course of the night, what I've been told from people familiar
with the situation is that one of the gang members had made a unauthorized change

(27:23):
to his deputy gang tattoo.
So they held him down in the sand and they fired a gun several times into the
floor and tried to burn the tattoo off of his leg.
And when that didn't work, they
just shot him point blank in the ankle and shot the tattoo off of him.
Wow. Or did they go to jail? No.

(27:46):
So the shooter was actually promoted a couple of months after this all happened.
He became a sergeant and is now responsible for overseeing deputies at his station.
Were you the great person who was involved with unmasking the whole L.A.

(28:07):
County Jail Lee Baca incident with the raid that went on there? I wish.
I've spoken to the guy that was behind that, Anthony Brown, who I think is just like a living legend.
He was incarcerated for bank robbery, I believe.
And he was approached by the FBI when he was incarcerated at MCJ to be basically

(28:30):
like a spy for the FBI to get the deputies caught up for bringing in contraband,
bringing in cell phones, beating people up.
Up that kind of thing and in the course the fbi gave him a cell phone and he
was using that to you know log everything that was happening and report back
to his handlers what he was seeing.

(28:51):
And the sheriff's department found out about that and basically what happened
is a scheme was hatched by paul tanaka who was second in command and lee baka
to hide anthony brown from the FBI.
And they would move him around from cell to cell every couple of hours, every couple of days.

(29:12):
And they would make up names for him and put him in the system under fake names.
So nobody knew who he was or where he was.
The FBI couldn't find him. His family couldn't find him. They had no idea.
He was like disappeared inside the jail. Yeah.
Eventually though, oh, and this story, It gets even crazier.
So his handler starts looking for him.

(29:33):
She's calling her bosses and the sheriff's department actually showed up to her house.
And there's a video of this. They walked up to her when she's trying to get
into her car to go to work.
And they basically told her, you know, leave this alone. Stop messing with this. Let it go.
And that's an FBI agent. Like they really are really bold with it.
But they did eventually find him, and it led to federal charges against Lee Baca and Paul Tanaka.

(29:59):
They both went to federal prison. They were released in 2020.
I've spoken to Lee Baca since then. And how did that go?
Honestly, it was probably one of the strangest conversations that I've had.
He said he was familiar with my reporting. He said that I was a very talented
journalist and that he respected my work.

(30:22):
He also said that he had no regrets and that he didn't feel that he did anything
wrong. Very diplomatic, huh? Mm-hmm.
Knows how to answer the questions real, real well. He's, yeah,
I would say with over 60 years of answering questions, he can wiggle his way
out of something. Did you ask him about the dementia?
I... Because that was a real mob move right there. Getting ready to go to court,

(30:44):
uh-oh. My brain, my health slipping, oh my gosh.
A lot, people have different opinions about that. Some people are like,
yeah, he has it. Other people are like, no.
And from the conversation that I have and like from conversations that I've
had with seniors that have like elements of dementia, it's easy to remember
things that happened in the past.

(31:05):
That's easier to recall. But the things that are happening right now are a little bit more tricky.
So I mean in the conversations that the conversation
that we had he was really quick with it
remembering stuff in like the 90s I would ask him about
you know something that happened when he was captain of you know
the station I think he was captain of Lenox station and he was like oh yeah

(31:28):
like going through it very easily so I mean I'm not saying that like he doesn't
have it like he could but for the stuff I wanted to know about he could recall
that very easily and what What were some of the things that he could recall?
We talked about when he was captain of Lenox, the station had the most shootings

(31:50):
out of the entire department.
And it was, I don't remember the exact number, but it was significant.
It was more than double, like the next station for the amount of times the deputies
were firing their guns. And I was like, well, how does that happen?
Is there a correlation to a deputy gang there? What was the reason?
And his answer was, you know, kind of what you'll hear a lot from this type

(32:14):
of person is like, oh, it's a violent area,
so you got to fire more guns, which I personally don't agree with, but that was his take.
So with dealing with all this, it's a lot. Do you feel safe day to day moving around?
For the most part, yeah. Yeah, there are sometimes incidents that happen that

(32:38):
kind of make me question things from time to time. But for the most part, I would say yes.
The last like sketchy incident that I had, I was in Compton and I was reporting and I was...
Admittedly i said that
night i want to see executioners which is a deputy
gang in the compensation and i told the people i was

(33:00):
with like we're gonna find some executioners tonight i want to see
them in action so we were driving around i
was with a woman that does cop watching in compton and
it's a thing called cop watching yes yes
first amendment auditors what they do is they
will listen to the police scanner and when

(33:21):
they hear where they are or if something's
happening they will drive to where it is and film
what's happening to make sure that the cops are doing everything correctly
and so what we were doing is we were literally just driving around looking for
them if we saw one drive by we would follow them if we saw someone getting pulled
over we would pull over we would film everything when the interaction was over

(33:44):
we We would talk to the person that was pulled over and say,
hey, like, you know, do you think they were fair with you? Yes, no.
Like, what do you think they could have done better? What do you think they could have done worse?
Would you like a copy of this video in case you want to make a complaint,
take any kind of action? And people do that.
Mostly, I would say mostly in South L.A. County is where I run into it the most.

(34:06):
Explain what, I'm from Compton, so what is an executioner? An executioner is,
well, what we've learned since then is that they don't call themselves that.
That was a name that I think was created by attorneys.
But it's a deputy gang.
Yeah, that's who they say controls the compensation, is that deputy gang.

(34:29):
What is the history of it? Are they a violent crew?
Because I've heard of the certain deputy gangs out of the 77th Division,
particularly where they say in order to join their gang, you have to get your
first blood and that you have to get an active shooter call and kill a black.
Yeah. So are they the same way? I've heard that. I've heard that you can only

(34:51):
get the ink if you've been involved in a shooting and someone died,
that you killed someone.
They were founded in 2002 by a former 3000 boy.
There's a pipeline actually from Men's Central Jail, those deputies,
to work in Compton and to work in the stations in South Los Angeles. evangelists.

(35:13):
So, I mean, there's some of like the most violent for the reasons we were talking
about earlier, just, you know, the sheer amount of violence that goes on in
the jails. That's how they're trained.
And then they come out to the streets and they're bringing those same tactics
and they're very eager to, you know, beat people up.
They're very eager to shoot people and ask questions later.

(35:34):
Yeah, I would say, I would say they're extremely violent, just like based on
what I've seen, you know, in the past couple of months, like,
going out in Compton at night, like, watching them.
When I was reporting in Compton, I did a study.
This was my USC reporting, just asking people, like, I wanted to know how these

(35:54):
interactions with deputies were affecting people's physical and mental health.
And in talking to people, one thing that really stuck with me is people would
be like, I just don't leave my house at night.
And it's not because I'm afraid of, you know, the street gangs.
It's because I'm afraid of the sheriff's deputies.
They're the ones that are going to, you know, catch me up, put me in jail,

(36:16):
or even worse, kill me. I think it was...
Fifty, I think, I don't know the percentage off the top of my head,
but it was at least a third of the people that I interviewed for this study
told me that they knew someone that had been killed by sheriff's deputies in Compton.
Has anybody in here been to Compton recently been pulled over? Me. You have? Yeah.

(36:39):
We would like to ask the question. I know Mercedes has experienced it and she didn't like that at all.
It was different. friend and when we left from being pulled over i said i've
never seen a cop talk like that like it was because i seen him and the way that
he pulled up i was like oh yeah it's gonna be some some bull,

(36:59):
yeah and i just explained to her like you know throw your hands out of the car
and when he approached it wasn't like excuse me how are you doing license and
registration like what's up g where you from you got any you know guns dope
on you and she tried to get the insurance information He's like,
I don't care about that. Him.
It's like, you know where you at? When you see my tattoos, what you doing over here?

(37:24):
They went and checked and let me go. But it was just the experience.
Like, no, this is how they roll.
They have that mind state of it. It takes one to know one.
And if you want to be the dog, you got to be it.
And I don't know how to combat that. How can you combat somebody who is the law?
I don't know. i mean it's difficult

(37:47):
i don't know if there is a way to like fix it
honestly how many officers have been
convicted of the things that have happened of deputy
gang activity zero so because it's
not a crime for while it would be a crime
for you or i to be in
a gang and if i you know i

(38:09):
mean technically technically by the standards of cal gang
which i'm sure you're very familiar with like i
could be in cow gang right now as like an
affiliate of a number of different gangs just
by the virtue of people that i know that are in there because of where they
grew up or who they're friends with and so if i i don't like if i let's say

(38:32):
i like stole something from like blooming Let's say I like stole this pair of jeans.
Automatically, I get 10 extra years for being a gang member. Right. Right.
If a cop did the same thing, like there is no, they don't get any gang enhancement

(38:53):
for being a member of the executioners.
And that has been my biggest argument over the years, because let's go down to the penal code.
I love this shit. I love this part right here. I've been waiting for you to
come because I need somebody to get in here and get with it with me.
So penal code 186.22B, criminal street terror, street gang act,
tenure enhancement, life Lifetime enhancement, all that.

(39:15):
Add the gun enhancement of the early 2000s, Operation Safe Street.
Shall we go over it again?
Each bullet with a hollow tip will get you an extra 10 years till the clip is
empty. So it's football numbers.
So you have street gang. What makes it? A person, one, no, three or more. Three or more.
Wearing the same color, saying what this is for.

(39:36):
Common name, hand sign, or symbol.
Sheriffs, same color, three or more, coming with the same thing and with the same.
How is how is there no equality and justice?
Yeah, it's a huge double standard. And this should be held to a higher standard
because you took an oath to do this.

(39:58):
Like me. Right. You're a private citizen.
What I did was for a gang. I didn't take an oath to go above and beyond and
be this this person of the law.
So it's like how do we combat that because
it's it's because whether they
want to admit it or not there's a lot of people in the community that feel safe

(40:19):
because there's a gang member that's outside rather than that cop rolling down
the street right and that's what i heard a lot from people it's like i feel
safer with my neighbors that i know who okay like they might be in a gang but But,
you know, I've known him since he was a kid.
He cut my lawn. Like, he watches my kids. Like, when things go wrong in the

(40:42):
neighborhood, that's who I'm calling. I'm not calling the cops.
Right. Yeah. And then cops show up after a crime is committed.
Right. Not to prevent it. Not at all.
So should you, let's say, think there would be a private company come out?
No. And be liaisons in the community, private for, no, by the community,

(41:03):
for the community. I'm really opposed to privatized policing because it's even
harder to report on than public entities.
California law very recently made it so that we can get records on deputy anytime
a deputy fires a gun we're entitled to those records or entitled to the records
if they lie about anything if they commit a sexual assault if there is a use

(41:25):
of excessive force to the point where someone is hurt we're entitled to those records and that took.
Years of work and organizing to get that
those laws only came online in 2019 so that
wasn't applied with the federal viewing rights act
no no no california is probably like until very recently it was one of the hardest

(41:47):
places to report on police tricky how yeah really yeah yeah unfortunately and
it was this legislation that passed in 2019 that made it so we could get those records,
SB 1421, and then subsequently SB 16.
And I say all that to say, like, that took a long time.
Private companies, you're not entitled to that because it's a private company.

(42:12):
When it's a public entity, they're subject to public records requests,
but private companies are not.
So if we were to bring in a private company to do, you know,
policing and something went wrong, it'd be really difficult for someone like
me to investigate that because it's a private company.
They don't have to give me any information.

(42:33):
Let's date back a little bit. George Floyd gets murdered by a cop.
Okay. The entire United States and world goes crazy over it.
There was a section in Beverly Hills, Melrose, Melrose area,
all that going around there, where...
Cops from Texas, Memphis, flying in from New York,

(42:57):
flew in to assist the LAPD in safeguarding those areas and basically said,
you leave the chaos over there, you guys can do this, but this,
we have this, and if you cross this line, we will kill you.
Yeah, I mean, I think it just underscores what the point of police really are,

(43:18):
which is to protect property and capital.
They're not really interested in our well-being or the well-being of the community.
It's to protect assets.
They're not really out here to, you know, do anything for us.
I just did a story, actually, about where the sheriff's deputies live,

(43:39):
and I found that about 40% of them don't even live in L.A. County. Santa Clarita.
Copland. I call it Copland. Santa Clarita. Everywhere. A lot of them live in
San Bernardino, Riverside, Orange County.
And what really surprised me is that there are more than 50 of them that don't
even live in the state of California.
They live in Tennessee. They live in Kentucky.

(43:59):
They live in Idaho. These are places that are, you know, a plane ride,
several hour plane ride away from here.
How does that work? So they fly home and then fly back to do a shift. Yeah.
Ain't nobody in their right mind going to be doing that. That's what?
Yeah. They have this thing called a flex schedule where you can work doubles

(44:20):
for three days and then have four days off.
And that's what they'll do. They'll get the flex schedule. So they come to L.A.,
they work for three days, and then they'll fly back to, you know,
Kentucky and have their four days with their family. Hmm.
Yeah, you're just bringing so much stuff to light. That doesn't make any sense.

(44:41):
Yeah. And is the department paying for this?
Well, I mean, they get very generous salaries. The average salary of a sheriff's
deputy is $164,000. Wow.
And that's, you know, you just go make that. You don't need a college diploma
or anything. You can just go make that.
So they have money to do this.

(45:03):
And they get benefits. They get pensions that we pay for for the rest of their lives. It's easy.
They can certainly afford it. Yes.
Yeah, there's possibly. So I'll say it like they say with the gangs.
The gangs will never leave.
I'm talking about street gangs. I say gangs will never leave.
But what can we do to

(45:23):
try to change the narrative change the cause
do you believe that if there's
going to be any more sheriffs lapd whatever the case
may be should it be people that are growing up
in these neighborhoods i would say the only way
that i can trust a sheriff deputy is if i see your son and my
son outside playing together i want to

(45:44):
see you outside with them that's the only anyway yeah i
i mean like personally speaking i think like
this department is like kind of beyond fixing right
a lot of people were really excited when alex vianueva our former sheriff who
was a very vocal the guy that has the podcast now does he have a podcast he

(46:06):
got his own show he had a am radio show for a while that he like had a whole
hour-long episode on me which was
really weird frankly whole hour episode
just talking about you just like shit talking yeah a
local person who definitely has an
ax to grind against the sheriff's department but she does not admit it in her

(46:28):
studies and that's one cerise castle from knock la one of these activists or
hacktivists i don't know what they call themselves these days groups oh he got
time yeah he retired right well
now he's running for county board of supervisors so make sure you vote.
I think we should get it we should get a hello kitty gang what do you think about that.

(46:49):
I think we could do that. So it's broken beyond repair.
In my opinion, yeah. Yeah, as I was saying, yeah, people are really excited
that he got out and we got a new guy in.
But my first story about our new sheriff, Robert Luna, is that he hired someone
that willingly admitted to having a deputy gang tattoo to be his number two.

(47:11):
And she's still his number two. I interviewed her.
Her name is April Tardy. We spoke at length about her tattoo.
And she just spilled the beans just yeah yeah
and she's still an active member she is the second in command of the sheriff's
department at this moment i'm talking about is she an active member of the gang

(47:31):
still i mean she still has a tattoo she still has the tattoo i mean i don't
i don't i think if i were to ask her that she would say it was never a gang
like a fraternity that's that's that's what
we're going with yes i spoke to
someone familiar with the
operations of that i mean i would call it a gang and their opinion was that

(47:56):
it was a networking group which i thought was really an interesting that's a
way to change the narrative i guess yeah i mean would you say that
your group is a networking group. An elite social class.
Yeah. So, if you want to change it, an elite social, we're, yeah,
we have picnics and pass out cookies.

(48:17):
Yeah. I mean, but that's, I would say, I would say.
I see more change with the guys that are actually in the streets because they
live it and they see it and they want it and nobody wants to see their kids go through that.
Whereas you look at sheriffs, even correctional guards.
We even sat down with the AW and he said it's all wrong.

(48:40):
This isn't the way that you do it. I got to look at it from a higher plane of
thought and say if your soul's not involved, then there's a problem.
It's big business. And if I'm a man walking around with chains and handcuffs
and I'm chasing people down, to
me, I look like that's the slave master chasing the slave in some sense.
Especially if you got dudes like Christopher Stone right here who's wrongfully convicted.

(49:03):
And they told his mother and his father, they said, we're going to take down your whole family.
Yeah. And they've been hunting him for years. So it's like, at what point does it stop? Yeah.
I mean, personally, I think we kind of just have to get rid of it.
And I've spoken to a lot of people that still work at the department,
people that have left the department that agree with me.

(49:25):
Like, I'm not the only person saying this.
Like, there are cops that agree
with me that say it's just like so broken that you have to get rid of it.
And with those cops, how do you treat them? Because my treating of them is,
I got to ask this question.
How many documents have you fabricated?
I've fabricated a lot of documents. And I ask them that.

(49:49):
And then did you send that paperwork through the chain of command,
and did every single sergeant, lieutenant all the way up to the captain with
the seal of the Los Angeles County on there sign this off and say that it's
correct paperwork even though you knew it was wrong, they knew it was wrong,
everybody else knew it was wrong and you admit to saying yes,
then that means everybody is wrong. Is guilty.
Yes, yeah. So all of y'all committing crimes, you can't say that you stepped

(50:10):
in here with clean hands as the court of law would say. So who the hell am I to trust?
Yeah. And they...
It's strange because that's our justice system. Yeah, it's completely corrupt.
And I think that's why a lot of, from what I understand through conversations

(50:32):
with people, that's why a lot of action isn't taken over these deputy gangs
and the crimes that they're committing.
It's because it's so interwoven and it's so corrupt. Like, for example,
what I've been told by deputy district attorneys is that it's difficult for
us to go after the people that we're counting on to make our cases.

(50:54):
If I have... There's some numbers game. Right. Like, if I'm trying to,
you know, make this case on someone who committed a murder,
let's say, and the officer involved in the investigation is someone that we
know is in the deputy gang, someone that we know has done wrong,
that has done misconduct.

(51:15):
To them I don't agree with this they won't go after that deputy because they
want to put the suspected murderer away because to them it's,
it's better to get more criminals off the street and to let the criminals with the badge go.

(51:38):
It's better for them. I don't agree with that.
I think maybe we would have less murder if we were going after the people that
are sworn to serve and protect doing these crimes.
Because, I mean, it does have an effect on people. I've talked to so many people
that say, when you're growing up and you see the people People that are supposed

(51:59):
to be like the example setters that are supposed to be enforcing the law and, you know, doing right,
committing crimes, lying on people, falsifying paperwork,
locking people up, treating people like shit.
Like, why would like it really I mean, just like crashes your world.

(52:20):
Why would you why would you ever want to aspire to do the right thing if all
you see is bad and they keep failing up? what's the point?
What's the point of trying to do the right thing? And then the history of it,
I have a different viewing of where sheriffing and policing started.
Can you give that, because people, they tend to hear what a person says,

(52:44):
and they're like, oh my God, they're just bashing this and bashing that.
But when you get down to the history of where it started, and you get to understand,
then you're like, oh, that's what this was for.
Yeah. So could you explain where it all originated? Yeah, well,
here in Los Angeles County,
I mean, the sheriff's department, when it started in the late 1870s,
at the time, we had one sheriff and he would deputize different people to be

(53:09):
his posse. It was a posse system.
And he would usually deputize, you know, I mean, his boys, like,
frankly, or people that it would be advantageous to be friendly with,
like business owners, actors, that type of thing.
And a lot of what they did back then was...

(53:30):
Just, like, enforcing systems of racism.
Like, in Los Angeles County at that time, we had a high number of people that
were coming from Mexico, that lived in Mexico.
I mean, the border kind of crossed them when Los Angeles was established as
part of the United States. But, you know, we had a lot of indigenous people, a lot of Mexicans.

(53:55):
And a lot of what the sheriff's department did was to go after these people
and strip them of their resources, of their land, of their homes,
of their money, put them in jail and make them do forced labor.
A lot of indigenous people that were living here at the time,
there are so many reports of them being

(54:15):
given alcohol and then the sheriffs
would come and arrest them for being drunk and take them to the jail and literally
rent them out to white landowners to do forced labor on their ranches and to
like work off their debt for public drunkenness.

(54:36):
The building of the prison industrial complex. Yes. Yeah.
Yeah. So that's, I mean, that's how it started. And I mean,
that was like really the system like for a very long time, that posse system
where that was being enforced until I believe it was not until like the 1950s
that they established an academy and they were like,

(54:56):
okay, we'll have uniforms and we'll actually like train people.
Until then, it was just the sheriff and his boys doing what they saw fit.
A lot of people don't know that Los Angeles is the site of the biggest lynching
in American history. It happened right in downtown LA.
You can go. You know where the 110 freeway is at 6th Street?

(55:17):
It happened right there. and there were 19 Chinese people that were lynched.
Very similar to the Emmett Till story, some white person said that a Chinese
person looked at him wrong and it led to this huge riot where Chinese people
were literally dragged out of their homes and executed in the street.

(55:39):
And the sheriff stood by, watched this all happen, did not do anything. And he said,
all this went down yeah i mean like i
said they're not really for us haven't really ever been
and i mean the earliest policing systems in this country were
runaway slave catchers you know white folks that were like if you've seen the

(56:02):
movie like django they were just like riding around looking for black folks
that had escaped enslavement and they took it upon themselves to capture these
people and to bring them back to these plantations.
That was really like the first iteration of policing that we saw in this country.
That was like the first time we really saw, you know, the law,

(56:26):
which at that point was the Fugitive Slave Act being enforced.
And if you look at the badges that these slave catchers wore,
they look exactly like the badges that we see on sheriffs today.
I saw one at a museum.
I think it was in Washington, D.C. It was a five-pointed star.

(56:46):
And I think I have a photo of this on my website. You put it next to the sheriff's,
badge that we have today.
It's literally the same thing. The only difference is that the modern sheriff's
badge has the addition of the California bear in the middle,
and it says Los Angeles County on it.
Yeah, that's too many similarities and it makes you feel uncomfortable.

(57:11):
I can see how people feel uncomfortable just hearing it. Some people,
they won't ignore it. They won't even look at it or pay attention.
And some people, I've had family members that you can't tell them anything wrong
about the law. They're like, why would they do that?
They're the law. What would make them want to do something like that?
And it's like, any person has the capacity to do evil or do wrong.

(57:32):
Any person. You just have to have the willpower not to.
How many times have you moved since you dropped the bomb on L.A. County? Three times.
And what is the need for you to move?
Well, at first it was just, I didn't live in an area where the sheriff's deputies

(57:53):
patrolled, but I was noticing that there were sheriff's deputies parked outside
of my house and just sitting there for hours,
which is a tactic that I had heard of happening to people who have had family
members killed by the sheriff's department.
They told me, oh yeah, they'll just come and sit it outside of our house and

(58:14):
like eat lunch and hang out, follow us around.
So when I saw that, I kind of knew what was going on. I believe an intimidation tactic.
That's, I mean, cops have told me like, yes, that's an intimidation tactic.
They're trying to scare you to make you stop.
Yeah. So I had to, when the, when the series first published,

(58:37):
I had to go into hiding, really, because I had someone contact me that told me they were concerned,
over practices they had seen at the highest levels of the department where information,
was being misused to look up political enemies of the department and find out personal information.

(59:01):
These are the police, so they can put in your name and they'll find out,
you know, your car, where you live all of that stuff basically this person was
saying that they were afraid that,
that would happen to me and that
bad things would happen because they had seen it happen already before to people
that were perceived as enemies of the department so when they told me that they

(59:25):
were like you should leave los angeles when the story comes out because it won't i don't think
it's going to go well for you if you are at your home.
Why? Why still continue? Well, I mean, I do enjoy my work.
I really like doing stories that touch on things that, you know,

(59:50):
maybe like we know growing up in community, but the wider world doesn't know about.
With this story, it wasn't necessarily like new information to me.
As I said, I had heard about it since I was a kid, but there really wasn't any
large accounting of it. There wasn't like, you know, an in-depth article like, here's the story.
Here's where it came from. This is why they do it. Here's who these people are

(01:00:13):
and how you can find them.
And doing that and just knowing the impact that it had in my community is like,
it's the best reward ever. I don't think I could like find a high like that if I tried.
Just making that difference to people and like giving that resource to people

(01:00:33):
has been really great for me personally.
I don't think that, I don't know, people will like gas me up and like say like,
oh, like you've made such a difference.
It's hard for me to like say yes to that
because i still see that the deputy
gangs are very active that they're still you know
actively going after people that people people are still

(01:00:56):
suffering in men's central jail people are still wrongfully convicted
you know in prison and we
still have deputy gang members running the department
so it's hard for me to say that like any of this really made that
much of a difference but but
like the small victories are i think are are equally important
like knowing that the public defenders are

(01:01:18):
using my deputy gang database and checking
the names when they get a new client that
they're running the arresting officers you got
a hook where you can look them up yes yes yes lasdgangs.com
can look up deputy gang members but yeah the
public defender's office they use my database and
anytime someone is arrested by a deputy

(01:01:42):
by a deputy they check to see
if they have a deputy gang background and that I think is huge like that's like
where a lot of this can stop like so many people are wrongfully arrested every
day didn't even know it was such a thing yeah and if you have your public defender
just like taking that first step and saying okay like.

(01:02:04):
Oh, it's a deputy gang member? That's a Brady violation.
Like, so now this whole case is in question. Like, that can really,
that can save someone's life. Is that even, is that retroactive?
Can it be used in cases that have been convicted already? Yeah, definitely.
Definitely. Because people have you. I've helped people that are incarcerated
that I've found information on.

(01:02:25):
And I've sent them this information and tried to help them get some kind of
habeas corpus relief or anything. Yeah, it definitely makes a difference.
If you find out that the guy arrested, he has this long history of being dishonest
and participating in a criminal gang. Like, oh, yeah, certainly.
I think that's evidence that could make a difference in your case. Yeah, absolutely.

(01:02:47):
So what is next for you? So I'm working on a book about all of this. Is it hard?
Writing a book? I cannot sit down and type for the life of me.
Yeah, it's really hard. I have to be very disciplined with it.
But yeah, I'm writing a book.
I continue to report on deputy gangs ongoing.

(01:03:08):
It's unfortunately a story that isn't really going anywhere.
Get a little on the book. What's the book about? Oh, yeah.
The book is it's about one, the history of deputy gangs and everything I've
covered as well as my experience reporting on this and just the different things
that I've gone through as a result of my reporting,

(01:03:28):
like having to move, having to
go into hiding, having to make a lot of changes to the way I live my life.
Like they monitor my social media i found
out that i was being monitored in 2022 how
do you find out you were being monitored public records request

(01:03:48):
i asked for any record of
sheriff's talking about me i'm in a public records request they denied my request
i had to sue them for it but i did win i have never lost a lawsuit against la
county oh yeah i have probably at any given in time probably like five to ten
active lawsuits against the county for information and I always win,

(01:04:11):
hold on hold on hold on so oh.
How did you get wind before filing the information, getting the information?
How did I know? How did you know? A cop told me, I think I saw a picture from
your Instagram printed out at my station.
And that really weirded them out. They were like, I have never seen really anything

(01:04:34):
like that before. It looked like your Instagram.
You might want to look into if they're watching you because it seems like they are.
And yeah like hearing something like like a printout of my instagram like that's really.
Stopperish it's yeah it's weird creepy vibes so
when i heard that i was like yeah i do

(01:04:55):
need to look into that and when they denied the
request it was just kind of like blatant confirmation
like something is happening here so then
we sued and it took three years but
i did get the information and it was over
like 600 pages just on on me just pictures 600 pages of pictures of them just

(01:05:17):
looking at you pictures just like monitoring what i was doing online i have
a crime analyst that's assigned to monitor anything that i post online her name
is kimberly dunn she's probably going
to watch this and yeah
she makes reports about what i
post and she sends it out to a list

(01:05:39):
serve of different deputies yeah which
i mean has changed like how i live my life i'm a millennial like i love to i
at one point i really did love to post on instagram and you know share things
with my friends it's how people keep up with me i can't do that anymore so you
you basically have You have to protect everybody else around you. Yes. You don't post?

(01:06:01):
I do post, but I no longer post my friends. If I do, I'm not,
like, tagging them or anything. Do you go out with your friends?
I do go out with my friends, but I always tell people, like,
don't take any pictures, like, of me.
Don't put me on your Instagram. If you do, like, put it on your close friends, like, whatever.
I just like I don't know how how deep it goes I don't know like how they find

(01:06:24):
these people I do know that some of my friends have been looked at I do know
that some of my friends have been surveilled as a result of just being my friend
well I'm finna be surveilled obviously now.
Not that I think they was doing it already but it comes with the territory like
I'm I honestly think some people are called to be like revolutionary in a sense

(01:06:48):
you know some people They got to be given a voice and being the person that you at least expect.
You got a different type of armor on. They don't expect you to be this person.
So there's so many of dudes right now sitting in jail that don't have the balls to do what you did.
So many of dudes walking the streets right now that don't have the guts to do that.

(01:07:12):
And they will never do it because of what they fear what the next man is going
to do. And you got to be fearless. Yeah.
So if I had the access to do it and all that, I mean, everything that you posted,
I'm talking about the maps, the different slogans, I done made reels out of them and reposted it.
Thank you. I was doing that a long time ago.
And it's something that I take serious because, you know, my dad was a cold case murderer.

(01:07:37):
And to have her go into my auntie's house and over 20-some years later see her
break down because she was like, you know, it's weird because the sheriff went and got your dad,
and called him to us one day, and they knew exactly where to find him,
where he was at. They knew which apartments he was always at.
And, you know, it was just weird things that happened.

(01:07:59):
And to have my own family, you know who you are, that work in the sheriff's
department at Compton, and they can't say anything about it.
And you know nothing, come on.
People just don't vanish and up and disappear. I don't care what they say.
And it's strange things that happen. I got some of my homeboys that have been
killed by the sheriffs and then they tell their girlfriends,

(01:08:22):
we're going to get you next.
You know, the paperwork is just, I'll never get it.
And it's so traumatizing to the point to where if my child came to me and told
me they would want to be an officer, we're not going to have it. Yeah.
You're going to be anything else you want to do. But you're not,

(01:08:44):
that's what you're not going to do.
Yeah. Because I know what comes with that. Once you join that,
there is no more family with us.
Because you took an oath and under that oath, you're going to ride with them.
And if they say, hey, you're going to put your brother away or you want to be
the guy that got his meat burnt off somewhere.
If they easily influence, they'll do it. So it's a different understanding.

(01:09:06):
But truly, truly thank you for what you're doing.
Even if you don't think you're doing something, you're doing something.
You're making waves. Thank you.
If anything, it'll light some fire under some people's asses to do something,
to inspire them to do something.
Where can people find you? Instagram, websites, you know, where, where can I?

(01:09:27):
Yeah. I'm on Instagram. I'm on Twitter. I'm on TikTok.
All of them. You can just find me by my name, Cerise Castle.
I got a question before we go. What do you see for the future?
What, what, what do you see for the, the youth?
I feel like my answer to that is like mad depressing.
I mean, it's the truth. The truth may hurt. Yeah. I mean, honestly.

(01:09:51):
I'll say this. is what do you see and what do you want what i okay i like that
what do i see i i mean i'm very like scared for the future just like as as a
reporter just like seeing what i see every day i'm very scared i you know like
this is like nothing to do with the conversation but seeing,
so many people like our government just like continue to fund this genocide

(01:10:15):
in palestine And despite the fact that people are so vocally opposed to it, it scares me.
I feel like we're living in like a neo-feudalist society, like with stagnant
wages where people can't be upwardly mobile, that we're stuck in this,
you know, system where we're like forced to work for nothing.

(01:10:35):
Everything is unattainable.
It scares me. I go to the neighborhoods that I report on and just like the conditions
that people are forced to live in. And, like, a lot of people don't know that,
like, Watts, Compton, Willowbrook has some of the highest levels of lead in the water.
Yeah. We've seen it. It's turned black now. Yeah. It's so bad the water's black.

(01:10:56):
Yeah. And this is also the neighborhoods with the highest number of youth in Los Angeles County.
These are also the neighborhoods that have some of the worst schools in the United States.
Like, it scares me. Like, you know, where the youth, like, are being forced
to grow up in these, like, squalid conditions and they aren't given the tools to get out of it.

(01:11:19):
And, you know, even if they did, like, there's not really a path.
Like, they don't have a way to, you know, build a life for themselves in this,
like, capitalist society that we live in. And they don't have a voice when it
comes to government, like at the highest, highest levels.
To be clear, I do think that like voting at the local level,

(01:11:39):
like that is where you can make a difference.
But when we're talking about like big picture stuff, like, no,
I don't think people really effectively have a voice anymore when it comes to
like the federal government, when it comes to how Congress works.
And all of that stuff really scares me. Like, I don't know where we're going.
I said neo-feudalism earlier like that's like yeah i think it's like plutocracy

(01:12:00):
vibes neo-feudalist vibes that's where i think we're going i don't want to go
there at all what i'd like to see,
is just like big change like sweeping change like i think the system that we
live in is like broken and it needs to be made three biggest things three biggest
things that i'd like to see changed.

(01:12:21):
Well, right now, I think we need an immediate ceasefire in Palestine.
I think that we need to see a death of the, we need to get rid of the electoral college.
I think that, and like, this is like really broad, but just like accountability,
like for government, for private companies, like it's unfathomable to me that

(01:12:44):
we can live in the United States.
And I see people living the way we do, that we have 60,000 homeless people on
the streets in this city.
This is the city with the most billionaires in the world. How is that possible?
It doesn't make sense to me. How are we living in a city with the most billionaires

(01:13:04):
and people don't have clean water?
It doesn't make sense to me. The only city where you can drive past a homeless man and a Bentley.
Me how does that how does it
not phase you to be able to see that like yeah it
doesn't it doesn't make sense so like there needs to be
some kind of accountability for that there needs to be some change is it a wealth

(01:13:25):
tax is it universal basic income is it reparations these are all things that
you know i've reported on that people are looking into there just needs to be
some sort of like sweeping accountability because we can't continue like this.
You heard the truth. She dropped the bomb and I can see that all that is like it weighs on you.

(01:13:48):
She was like maybe you needed to get that out.
That's an expression that maybe a lot of people feel the same way about.
They've never heard it. Like, all right, somebody I can finally agree on.
So I'm not going through some things. These are agreeable subjects.
Thank you for coming out. Thank you for having me. The next time you drop the
bomb, matter of fact, I want to be a cameraman.

(01:14:11):
You know what I'm saying? I'll be cameraman, security, pull up,
hop out there. All right, where are we at? Let's get it done.
And for the different groups out there, any groups that you would like to highlight,
like the people that follow the sheriff? Like, what is the name of that group? Yeah, definitely.
There are a lot of great people doing a lot of great work throughout Los Angeles County.
I would say if you're interested just like overall in sheriff accountability,

(01:14:33):
there is a coalition called the Check the Sheriff Coalition that is made up
of several different groups. I can't name them all.
The ones that come to mind, Black Lives Matter, Council of the Contract,
Danilov Valley, all involved in different facets of police accountability.
They're in the Check the Sheriff Coalition, and they specifically work on accountability
with the Sheriff's Department, Dignity and Power Now, and the Justice LA Coalition.

(01:14:57):
They're working on, well, I mean, they've been supposed to close Men's Central
Jail, but they're working on accountability on making that happen.
The ACLU, if you're interested in learning more about public records requests
and how to get information from government bodies.
And I mean, if you're interested in like just like journalism and doing this

(01:15:19):
yourself, I would recommend the Ida B. Wells Society.
That's how I sort of got into public records. I took a class with them for free. It's free.
And one of you lucky people, if you can get ahold of her, ask her to be her understudy.
Yeah i yeah always always work
always always looking for help hopefully hopefully

(01:15:39):
like you're in school or something because i don't have
money to like pay and i'm just like morally i i do not believe in free labor
so like like please be in school or something we could work out like a something
but yeah i'm always looking for help all right well to conclude this thank you
this This is the Strangest Fruit Podcast.

(01:16:00):
This is Mr. Reese Castle, the journalist.
Next time you come up on something good, please drop by. Drop some stuff on us.
Thank you everybody for watching. Stay tuned. We got some new things coming next.
Music.