Oversight Report Confirms What Multiple Sheriffs Have Denied: The LA Sheriff’s Department Has A Gang Problem

Legal Issues

from the presiding-in-denial dept

Los Angeles may have a gang problem. But so does its sheriff’s department. What’s already toxic about law enforcement culture has been embraced, cultivated, and amplified by the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department and its leaders, a steady string of shitty sheriffs willing to give deputies the longest of leashes.

Still, sheriffs pretend there isn’t a problem. The last head of the department, Alex Villanueva, posed as a reformer to win the election but once in office, made sure the gang business was more usual than ever. Villanueva, after promising to clean up the troubled department, went on the attack against the LASD’s many critics, raiding their houses and threatening them with lawsuits for telling the truth.

There’s a new sheriff in town. Robert Luna now heads the department — another candidate presenting himself as a reformer, even though his law enforcement history doesn’t exactly indicate he’s a go-getter willing to remove bad apples from the barrel.

As the new man with the big badge, Sheriff Luna now has to deal with the problems previous sheriffs refused to deal with. Villanueva flatly denied the existence of deputy gangs. But Luna won’t have that luxury, thanks to a recent report [PDF] from the department’s civilian oversight board. (h/t NBC News)

The 70-page report opens with assertions that don’t really lend themselves to denial.

The Department currently contains several active groups that have been, and still are, engaged in harmful, dangerous, and often illegal, behavior. Some of these groups have engaged in acts of violence, threatened acts of violence, placed fellow Deputies at risk of physical harm, engaged in acts celebrating officer involved shootings, and created a climate of physical fear and professional retribution to those who would speak publicly about the misconduct of such groups. Publicly released deputy body camera video illustrates such misconduct directed to a member of the public. For that reason, going back 30 years to the Commission led by Judge James J. Kolts, these groups have been fairly referred to as “Deputy Gangs.”

“Currently contains.” The problem still exists, which is unsurprising because no sheriff — past or present — has made any serious attempt to root out this long-running problem.

That leads directly to the commission’s (sadly, not criminal) indictment of former sheriff Alex Villanueva.

While the prior Sheriff publicly asserted that he had acted to eliminate Deputy Gangs, in fact he facilitated their continued presence by, among other things, appointing known tattooed members of Deputy Gangs and Deputy Cliques to leadership positions in the Department, permitting the revival of emblems signifying membership in such groups and repeatedly relying upon an erroneous statement of law to avoid promulgating and enforcing a policy prohibiting Deputy Gangs and Deputy Cliques in the Department.

This concludes with another shot directly across the departing sheriff’s bow:

The claim that Deputy Gangs no longer exist in the Department is flatly and inarguably false.

The commission isn’t just speculating about the existence of deputy gangs. The report is supported by eighty witness statements, dozens of depositions, and other Los Angeles government agencies, including the county Inspector General, which found its office denied access to LASD employees and records by Sheriff Villanueva.

What the oversight commission didn’t have access to was Sheriff Villanueva himself. Villanueva and his second-in-command (Timothy Murakami) repeatedly refused to be interviewed or deposed by commission’s investigators.

Evidence of deputy gangs dates back a half-century. An internal memo created in 1973 documents the existence of an LASD gang known as the “Little Devils” that had 38 members. Over the next half-century, more evidence came to light, exposing additional gangs and the abusive behavior of their members, who frequently violated the rights of the citizens they were supposed to be serving.

The Little Devils started it. Many others followed. The gangs identified by documents, depositions, and testimony include the Vikings, Banditos (whose members severely beat other deputies who weren’t gang members), the Mexican Mafia, the Regulators, and the Jump Out Boys. Internal and external investigations showed these gangs often refused to respect the chain of command and used their leverage to secure various benefits (time off, desk jobs, cushy patrol options) for themselves and their members.

The previous two sheriffs’ unwillingness to do anything about deputy gangs extended to their promotion process, which resulted in the elevation of gang members to second-in-command positions.

Deputy Gangs and Deputy Cliques are embedded in the culture of the Department, either tolerated or ignored. Indeed, during the tenure of Sheriff Baca, the Undersheriff, Paul Tanaka, was a tattooed member of the Vikings. According to numerous witness interviews, former Sheriff Villanueva’s Undersheriff, Tim Murakami, has a Caveman tattoo.

What passes as deterrence is actually just a revolving door for gang members.

There are at least a half dozen, and possibly more, Deputy Gangs and Deputy Cliques currently in the Department, primarily at patrol stations. They include the Executioners, the Banditos, the Regulators, the Spartans, the Gladiators, the Cowboys and the Reapers. There are reports that new Deputy Cliques are forming as members of existing Deputy Gangs and Deputy Cliques retire or otherwise leave the Department. There is some evidence indicating that Deputy Cliques are re-emerging in the Los Angeles County jails as the 4000 Boys.

Merely transferring members of Deputy Gangs or Deputy Cliques has not proved particularly effective. After the CCJV’s 2012 findings confirmed the existence of the 2000 and 3000 Boys on the second and third floor of MCJ [men’s central jail], many of these deputies were transferred out of the jail to patrol. Many of the 3000 Boys sought assignments to Compton Station and became Executioners; many 2000 Boys sought assignment to Century Station and became Spartans.

The LASD is being destroyed by its gangs. The inmates are running the asylum, encouraged by the lack of pushback from department officials — some of whom obviously recognize the threat gangs pose to them and their careers. The LASD is stocked full of criminals, all of them wearing badges.

Deputy Cliques run the stations or units where they exist, as opposed to the sergeants, lieutenants and the captain who are charged with the duty to run the station; exercise influence over and often decide assignments and shifts, training, and overtime; exclude deputies from the Deputy Cliques, often based on race, ethnicity or gender; intimidate deputies that are not part of the Deputy Cliques; give orders not to provide backup to disfavored deputies who are not members of the Deputy Cliques; order work slowdowns if management of a station attempts to rein them in; encourage a “we-they” attitude, not just between them and the public, but with other deputies within the station; operate in secrecy; lie in reports to protect each other; and threaten the public with use of excessive force without justification and belittle deputies unwilling to engage in such acts.

Most troubling, they create rituals that valorize violence, such as recording all deputy involved shootings in an official book, celebrating with “shooting parties,” and authorizing deputies who have shot a community member to add embellishments to their common gang tattoos.

[…]

Deputy Gangs and Deputy Cliques also have used and continue to use assaultive behavior against fellow deputies who do not belong to their groups as a show of power and influence.

Contributing to the problem? The department’s union and county prosecutors, neither of which have made any effort to deter gangs or prosecute deputies for violating rights and/or assaulting non-gang members. The county’s lawyers have pitched in as well, defending deputies in court even when the violations or criminal acts occurred when these officers were off duty.

The commission makes several recommendations, all of which are likely to be ignored. Gang membership should be a policy violation with termination attached. The new sheriff should make gang elimination a priority, something his predecessors never did. And expansion of supervisory positions should be implemented to provide more resistance against gang control of patrol stations and jails. The commission also suggests massive restructuring of command personnel to eliminate support of gangs and cliques. It also suggests a reshuffling of personnel to separate deputies from other member of their gangs.

Will any of this work? Who knows? It literally has never been tried. Someone with a very strong will is needed and the current sheriff doesn’t appear to be that person. Whatever comes of this, the department can no longer pretend it doesn’t have a gang problem. It’s all there in black and white. What it chooses to do about this will show the county’s residents whether or not the department is worthy of any trust at all. So far, it has yet to demonstrate it is.

Filed Under: alex villanueva, gangs, lasd, police gangs, robert luna

Los Angeles Elects Another Reformer Sheriff To Replace Its Previous Reformer Sheriff

Legal Issues

from the spin-the-wheel! dept

The Los Angeles Sheriffs Department (LASD) has been overseen by a succession of terrible elected officials. Sheriff Lee Baca presided over a department that filled its ranks with criminals, ignored the proliferation of deputy gangs, and ran a jailhouse informant program so unlawful it resulted in an FBI investigation and the conviction of Sheriff Baca on obstruction charges.

Enter Alex Villanueva. Villanueva promised to clean up the LASD, a promise he kept right up until he had a chance to keep it. Instead of cleaning up the department, Villanueva made it worse. He ignored reports of deputy gangs, allowing them to thrive. He threatened to sue county politicians who dared to mention the existence of gangs Villanueva claimed (despite plenty of evidence to the contrary) did not exist. He raided the homes of critics and blocked the county inspector general from accessing LASD buildings and files.

Villanueva is now gone, voted out of office in favor of another self-proclaimed reformer, Robert Luna, who was previously the chief of police for the Long Beach PD. In the weeks preceding his election, people had more questions than answers, although some voters seemed to believe Luna was the best person for a job mishandled by many in previous years.

The fact that he was the only candidate in the eight-person primary field with no ties to the sheriff’s department may have helped him get one step closer to it. (Jim McDonell, who was defeated by Villanueva four years ago to become the rare sitting sheriff to lose an election, was Luna’s predecessor as Long Beach police chief.)

“Voters who wanted a real alternative had one candidate,” said Jody Armour, a professor of law and constitutional law scholar at USC.

“[H]e will get rid of deputy gangs, he’s not from the system, and wants to work WITH Board of Supervisors,” said Eagle Rock resident Donna Choi, who voted for Luna, in a direct message on Twitter.

So far, so good. But these promises are similar to those made by Villanueva prior to his election. And he abandoned those almost immediately after taking office.

Luna does have some positive notes on his record, though.

Over his seven-year tenure at the top of LBPD, Luna brought in body-worn cameras and implemented an early-warning system to identify problem officers. He started an office of constitutional policing in the wake of George Floyd’s murder. He told us he had reduced police shootings by department officers by 50% between 2015 and 2020.

His statement following his election sounds pretty good, too.

Sheriff Luna outlined his plan for the Department and set the groundwork to foster a collaborative work environment with the rest of County Government. “Integrity is about treating people with respect and living up to the Law Enforcement Code of Ethics.” Sheriff Luna said, “Accountability is not something to be feared, but rather embraced, as it is the cornerstone to any successful law enforcement agency. All of us, starting with me, will be accountable to the people we serve. And collaboration is the best way to reduce crime and to work with our community in partnership.” 

But will Sheriff Luna actually reform the LASD? Or will he allow the LASD to reroute his priorities and give Los Angeles County residents more the same subpar, abusive law enforcement it has suffered through for years?

Luna’s track record as the head of Long Beach PD suggests he may not be the reformer he portrays himself as. A deep dive into his career by Knock LA uncovers plenty of problematic behavior by both Luna and the department he ran.

First off, the Long Beach PD is allowed to investigate its own shootings. Many departments do this, but few do it the way the LBPD does.

Rather than homicide investigators conducting recorded interviews with officers following a shooting as is advised by DA protocol, officers file statements which are then reviewed by investigators who may instruct officers on revisions. The original drafts of these statements are not made available.

That sounds like the sort of policy a reformer would alter, rather than allow to continue under his watch.

And even though Luna claims to have reduced police shootings during his tenure as chief, most of the shootings that did occur were extremely questionable.

In 74% of police shootings between 2016 and 2020, LBPD officers did not attempt to use non-deadly force before firing their guns, data pulled from the California Department of Justice and compiled by PoliceScorecard.org shows.

In 2018, it was discovered that officers were using a self-deleting messaging app called TigerText. Once this information was made public by Al Jazeera, Chief Luna forbade its use. He also claimed the app was not used to destroy evidence or make messages related to arrests, investigations, and prosecutions inaccessible to the accused. But all of that seems highly unlikely, given this:

One LBPD source told Al Jazeera that they witnessed the app being used during an investigation into the fatal police shooting of Jason Conoscenti in 2014. Long Beach Officers Eric Barich and Salvadore Alatorre, falsely believing that Conoscenti had assaulted a sheriff’s deputy with a deadly weapon, shot him as he ran away from police following a pursuit and lengthy standoff. Prosecutors declined to criminally charge the officers involved, citing “insufficient evidence,” but the city settled a wrongful death lawsuit brought by Conoscenti’s aunts for $2 million. Alatorre was fired in 2019 after numerous excessive force cases resulting in huge cash payouts by the city. 

On top of that, Chief Luna apparently approved the destruction of two decades of internal affairs records before a new law went into place making these records accessible to the public for the first time in the state’s history.

In 2018, days before SB 1421 — a statewide transparency law that opened up certain police misconduct records for the first time — was set to go into effect, the LBPD purged a 23-year backlog of internal affairs records. While police administrators claimed at the time that it was merely a matter of clearing up storage space, internal emails we later obtained showed that Luna and other police brass were circulating messages from outside attorneys advising them to shred records ahead of the new law.

There’s much, much more in the Knock LA report that shows Luna isn’t the reformer he wants people to believe he is. His department has a long history of stonewalling public records requests and data shows his department engaged in the same biased policing that has long plagued the department he’s been elected to lead.

While it’s possible Luna may surprise everyone (including himself, apparently…) by bringing a new level of accountability and transparency to the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department, odds are even better he’ll just be the new face of the county’s ongoing law enforcement disaster.

Filed Under: alex villanueva, lasd, lee baca, police gangs, robert luna

Report Shows Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department Wastes Most Of Its Time Hassling Minorities

Legal Issues

from the pretty-much-all-we-would-expect-of-the-LASD dept

The Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department has long since abandoned any pretense of serving the public. In fact, it may never have pretended to respect this ideal at any point in its history. It has been a rogue agency for years, openly hostile to oversight, boldly breaking the laws it has sworn to uphold, filling its ranks with deputy gangs, engaging in routine rights violations, prosecuting its critics, and otherwise behaving as though it answers to no one.

Whatever the LASD offers in crime fighting is seemingly undercut by everything it detracts from the community it doesn’t even pretend to serve. A new report from the ACLU and Catalyst California shows the continued funding of the LASD is, at best, counterproductive. All it does is force residents to pay for abusive activities and rights violations. (h/t FourthAmendment.com)

This is what $3.5 billion a year is buying for Los Angeles County residents:

Rather that addressing community concerns about serious crime, sheriff’s departments waste millions of dollars conducting pretextual stops for minor traffic violations that do not improve roadway safety.  For example, data show that amongst all stops, deputies in Los Angeles and Riverside counties spend nearly 9 out of every 10 hours on stops initiated by officers rather than responding to calls for help from community members. And amongst those officer-initiated stops, approximately 80% are for traffic violations.   

As the report [PDF] shows, it’s not just the LASD that’s wasting time and money hoping to luck into roadside busts. The same sort of disdain for public safety is common in all of the largest sheriff’s departments in the state. 90% of work hours are being spent on stops where the reason for the stop isn’t the objective of the stop. Most of these stops turn up nothing illegal, which means crime rates are being lowered, actual criminal acts aren’t being investigated, and actual criminals are spending 90% of their time not having to worry about the heat closing in.

Things that could actually impact public safety (rather than the bullshit stops that disproportionately target minorities) are given the short end of the budgetary stick while law enforcement making a negligible impact on crime rates continue to hoover up billions in funding across the state.

California’s 58 counties and 482 cities annually spend over $25 billion on law enforcement, compared to only $3.7 billion on public health. And, counties specifically spend more general fund revenue on sheriff’s departments than on social services by a substantial margin

And that’s only the front end. Due to the toxic culture present in so many sheriffs agencies, residents are also forced to cover back end expenses caused by deputies and departments that have effectively neutered any form of accountability or oversight.

[I]n 2019, Los Angeles County paid nearly $52 million for settlements and judgments on cases arising from sheriff deputies’ misconduct toward members of the public, and approximately $9.6 million to defend the deputies who caused those harms.

[…]

Riverside County… paid $77 million for police misconduct ($63 million for excessive force and $12 million for false arrests) between 2010 and 2020.

Millions of the billions allotted to the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department are wasted every year. More money goes to officers hoping to find crime than to officers responding to reported crimes. 89% of the LASD’s patrol hours were spent engaging in stops initiated by officers. That insane ratio breaks down like this in actual money.

Using a one-to-one correlation between budget and patrol time estimates, L.A. Sheriff’s Department officer-initiated stops cost over $981 million, and calls for service cost approximately $124 million.

In essence, this means California residents are forced to spend 80-90% of their law enforcement tax dollars on traffic enforcement — the most common pretext use to engage in speculative fishing expeditions and warrantless searches. And, for all the dollars and time expended on officer-initiated stops, very little criminal activity is detected or punished.

[A]mong officer-initiated stops for traffic violations by the Sacramento Sheriff’s Department, approximately 3 out of every 4 hours (74.8% or a total of 3,171 hours) are spent on stops that result in a warning or no action.

[…]

For the San Diego Sheriff’s Department, looking at officer-initiated stops for traffic violations, over 1 out of every 3 hours spent was for a stop that resulted in a warning or no action (2,166 total hours).

Across all counties examined by the ACLU and Catalyst California, minorities were disproportionately targeted by traffic stops, with Black people being the most common target across the state. In some counties, Black drivers were targeted at nearly double the rate of white drivers and nearly forty percent more often than the next racial group, Native Hawaiians or Pacific Islanders (NHPI). And even that disparity may be on the low side. As the report notes, the LASD has already been called out by its Inspector General for under-reporting stops of minorities.

So, what’s the solution? Short of disbanding these departments, there’s nothing that’s going to show immediate change. Some gradual change can be forced on these departments by legislation and consent decrees, but evidence continues to show sheriffs (an elected position) are often more powerful than their oversight and tend to treat their counties like fiefdoms, rather than communities they’re supposed to be serving. Increasing data collection on stops will ensure departments can’t pretend they’re serving the public effectively but it likely won’t change their habits. At some point, you have to pick the nuclear option and withstand the immediate hardships to deliver permanent change. Whether anyone’s willing to do that remains to be seen.

Filed Under: civil liberties, lasd, police state, racism

Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department Goes Completely Rogue, Blocks Inspector General’s Access To Files, Facilities

Failures

from the law-enforcement-with-zero-respect-for-the-law dept

The Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department has been problematic pretty much ever since its inception. Its prior iteration — headed up by Sheriff Lee Baca — was an abhorrent mess. The LASD was (and still is!) home to gangs formed by deputies — cliques that encouraged members to violate rights and abuse those incarcerated in the county jail. Baca’s department became infamous for its internal corruption, something manifested by its obstruction of federal investigations and rogue jailhouse informant program.

Enter Sheriff Alex Villanueva. Elected after promising to clean up the troubled department, Villanueva soon showed he was more interested in shielding his officers from public scrutiny and ignoring the internal rot that had turned the agency into a menace to Los Angeles society.

The new sheriff created a handpicked “Public Integrity Unit,” an entity whose name seemed to indicate Villanueva would be cleaning up the department. Shortly thereafter it became apparent the unit was far more interested in targeting the department’s critics in the Los Angeles government.

Villanueva only amped things from there. He threatened county leaders with defamation suits for continuing to (accurately) portraying the department as infested with cliques of rogue deputies. He also sent his officers out to raid the homes of two prominent critics involved in civilian oversight of the department under the pretense the LASD was investigating fraudulent acquisition of county contracts.

With members of the county’s civilian oversight sufficiently cowed by legal threats, non-compliance, and seizure of their electronic devices, the sheriff has moved on to shutting down the internal remnants of LASD accountability, as Alene Tchekmedyian reports for the Los Angeles Times.

Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva announced this week that he is banning Inspector General Max Huntsman from the department’s facilities and databases, effectively blocking the county watchdog from doing his job overseeing the Sheriff’s Department.

[…]

“Mr. Huntsman will be removed from all access to Department facilities, personnel, and databases effective immediately,” Villanueva wrote in a letter Wednesday to the Board of Supervisors. “This standard is applied to all Department personnel who are named as a suspect in a criminal case involving felony crimes.”

This astounding display of power follows Villanueva’s (unfounded) assertions that IG Huntsman is a “Holocaust denier” and his still-unproven claim that the Inspector General has committed crimes of his own, such as “stealing” confidential files on LASD officials from the department. The Inspector General has responded his access was limited to his office’s investigations and was lawfully obtained.

This suggests the LASD is doing nothing more than concocting criminal charges to bypass internal and external oversight — an impression that isn’t helped by the LASD’s failure to move forward with charges against the Inspector General, despite making these claims for more than three years.

What’s left is the undeniable impression that the LASD considers itself to be above the law. This isn’t necessarily new. It gave that same impression while run by Sheriff Lee Baca. But it’s extremely troubling a self-proclaimed reformer would so easily become part of the problem, deceiving the public for the apparent purpose of further elevating the rogue department above the people it’s supposed to serve.

Filed Under: alex villanueva, gangs, inspector general, lasd, los angeles, los angeles sheriff's department, max huntsman, oversight, transparency

LA County Sheriff Still Targeting Critics, Searches Home Of Civilian Oversight Board

Legal Issues

from the gang-that-favors-beige-polyester-blends dept

Current Los Angeles County sheriff Alex Villanueva campaigned with the promise he would clean up the literally gang-infested Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department (LASD). Once he took office, however, he just became part of the problem. Rogue units of deputies continued to freely operate, resulting in federal lawsuits, a bunch of whistleblowing, and [re-reads report] the attempted removal of an LASD gang tattoo with a [re-re-reads report] handgun.

The Sheriff has responded to criticism of his non-efforts to purge the department of bad officers by opening investigations into his critics and threatening city council members with defamation lawsuits for (truthfully) referring to the existence of deputy gangs in his department.

The intimidation continues. The LASD recently searched the homes of two longtime critics, walking away with phones, computers, and a re-established chilling effect. Alene Tchekmedyian reports on the latest for the Los Angeles Times:

Los Angeles County sheriff’s investigators searched the house of county Supervisor Sheila Kuehl on Wednesday as part of a criminal investigation into a county contract awarded to a nonprofit organization.

A few minutes after 7 a.m., a deputy pounded on the front door of the supervisor’s Santa Monica property, with several other deputies lined up behind him.

“Sheriff’s Department. We have a warrant. We demand entry,” he shouted. Kuehl appeared shortly after and was handed some paperwork. Several deputies went inside.

According to the warrant, this search was part of an alleged corruption investigation spearheaded by the LASD. But the targets are conspicuous in their similarities.

A copy of the warrant, signed by Superior Court Judge Craig Richman, showed that the search was tied to an ongoing probe into Peace Over Violence, a nonprofit run by Patti Giggans, a member of the Sheriff Civilian Oversight Commission and a close friend to Kuehl. Both Kuehl and Giggans have clashed fiercely with Sheriff Alex Villanueva and have called for his resignation.

Giggans’ house was also searched by the LASD, along with the LA County Hall of Administration, and the Metro Transportation Authority’s HQ. All of these searches were supposedly related to the contract awarded to Peace Over Violence by the county. Despite first claiming it could not talk about the ongoing investigation, the LASD later posted a detailed statement to its website, alleging bribery of a country supervisor.

If there’s any legal basis for these claims, much less their accompanying searches, the county DA’s office hasn’t seen anything. In addition, it says it’s not going to help the LASD harass its critics.

Later on Wednesday, the county district attorney’s office said in a statement that prosecutors “were not consulted or aware of the search warrants that were served today. In this case, because we did not review the warrant beforehand, we do not intend to defend it if challenged in court.”

Prosecutors aren’t just saying this stuff to distance themselves from the toxic sheriff or because they’re not privy to the details. The DA’s office said it was presented evidence by LASD investigators last year, but didn’t see anything resembling evidence that would “prove criminal conduct beyond a reasonable doubt.” The LASD didn’t let that declaration deter its investigation of these two critics and forged ahead. The DA’s office said last September’s shoot-down of the LASD’s evidence presentation was the last contact the office has had with the department.

Even if we choose to believe this is a legitimate investigation into potential bribery, there’s no explanation for this:

When a tow truck prepared to take away her car, Giggans angrily objected, saying the warrant did not authorize seizing the vehicle. “This is a lawsuit in the making,” Giggans said, adding, “Bullies.”

The department had already seized computers and flash drives, both potential sources of evidence related to the alleged crimes. Trying to take a car that would provide zero evidence related to the investigation is nothing more than a power move by the LASD, testing the waters to see what it could get away with.

And already some of the LASD’s sprawling, detractor-targeting investigation has been shut down by a judge. An order issued late last week prevents the Sheriff’s Department from searching some of the computers they seized.

The order from Judge William Ryan applies solely to computers sheriff’s investigators took from Metro’s Office of Inspector General, whose attorney filed papers Thursday asking the judge to toss the search warrant used to seize the equipment.

The attorney argued that the warrant served this week was illegal. He said it failed to comply with a ruling made by a different judge regarding “an identical warrant” served last year in the same case, which has generated criticism that Sheriff Alex Villanueva is targeting his critics.

Whatever the eventual fallout from this show of force, Sheriff Villanueva is sure to survive it. He’s elected, which means he can’t be run out of office until voters decide they’ve had enough. And until they decide that, this is the sort of dubious law enforcement work they’ll be paying handsomely for.

Filed Under: 4th amendment, alex villanueva, civilian oversight board, free speech, lasd, patti giggans, sheila kuehl
Companies: peace over violence

Sheriff Who Claimed He Would Clean Up The Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department Gang Problem Has Instead Allowed It To Thrive

Legal Issues

from the chief-inmate-willing-to-keep-running-the-LASD-asylum dept

The Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department has long contended it has no gang problem. We’re not talking about the many gangs roaming the streets of Los Angeles. We’re talking about the cliques formed by deputies that identify themselves with patches, tattoos, tactics, and a general disregard for the rights of the people they serve.

The LASD has been the subject of multiple federal investigations for violating rights and breaking laws. Sheriff Lee Baca — who found himself convicted of obstruction — no longer runs the department. It is now in the hands of Sheriff Alex Villanueva, a supposed “reformer” who campaigned on promises to clean up the corruption infesting the Sheriff’s Department.

Nothing has changed under Villanueva. The department is facing a federal lawsuit over the presence of gangs within its ranks. Sheriff Villanueva has continued to deny the department hosts gangs composed of deputies, but those employed by the department say otherwise. Rather than root out the bad apples who are rotting his barrel from the inside out, the Sheriff has chosen to spend his time and energy attacking his critics.

His “Public Integrity” unit hasn’t done anything to increase the department’s integrity. Instead, it has chosen to open criminal inquiries into the department’s many critics. The Sheriff has also threatened city council members with defamation suits for publicly discussing the department’s gangs. And while the Sheriff continues to fight a losing battle against public perception, new details about gang activity within his department continue to leak out — like the recounting of a deputy camping trip that culminated in one deputy trying to remove another deputy’s “unauthorized” gang tattoo with [re-reads allegations] bullets.

Dana Goodyear has written a long expose on the (relatively) new sheriff in town, showing how Alex Villanueva’s campaign promises to reform the department have been discarded in favor of becoming the LASD’s Enabler-in-Chief. This isn’t a new problem. The only thing that’s new is the installation of yet another sheriff who pretends the problem doesn’t exist.

Deputy gangs, or “subgroups,” with names like the Grim Reapers, the Regulators, and the Vikings, have plagued the sheriff’s department for fifty years. Members have been accused of serious breaches of department policy and violations of constitutional rights, of terrorizing the public and harassing their fellow-deputies, and of retaliating against whistle-blowers.

You can’t fix a problem you refuse to see. That’s been the modus operandi of the LASD for decades. Regime changes have changed nothing about the department’s culture, which accepts, protects, and denies LASD gangs.

If you cross gang members — like Deputy Rosa Gonzalez did — other officers would not only ostracize you, but leave you to die.

In a lawsuit that Gonzalez filed in 2015, she claims that a sergeant—who admitted under oath to being a tattooed Bandito—removed her trainee and threatened to sabotage her career if she objected. She filed a grievance, and then punishment began. Fellow-deputies, she alleges, refused to provide her with backup. Once, responding alone to a burglary at a grocery store, she radioed for help repeatedly, but no one came to her aid.

Deputy Lopez eventually obtained a $1 million settlement from L.A. County. But that settlement did nothing to encourage LASD officials to address the multitude of problematic officers they were supposed to be overseeing.

Villanueva upset the incumbent to become Sheriff, earning plenty of support from people who felt he would finally reform the rogue department.

Mark Gonzalez, the chair of the Los Angeles County Democratic Party, told me that Villanueva met all his members’ criteria. “Everyone felt he was thinking and preaching the word of the Party,” he said. “He was about reforming the sheriff’s department, cleaning house, raising standards, doing community policing, and restoring trust.”

But once elected, Alex Villanueva went from being a man of the people to being part of the problem. The man with the power to change things instead deployed his power to insulate his deputies from criticism, investigations, and L.A. County residents. Villanueva claimed he would deploy a “zero tolerance” policy to address the formation of gangs/cliques within the department.

He lied.

[T]he department has made no systematic attempt to determine which of its members have tattoos, and has yet to fire anyone for connection to a deputy gang. Instead, according to people who know the department well, the Banditos are thriving under Villanueva. The East L.A. deputies’ lawsuit claims that Villanueva put an alleged Bandito in charge of the department’s communications office; he was subsequently promoted to captain of the Homicide Bureau and then made a commander of the Detective Division. 

Sheriff Villanueva — sometimes aided by his wife, a retired LASD deputy — has instead wielded his power to attack whistleblowers, stonewall oversight efforts, and open investigations into his critics and rivals. LASD gangs continue to thrive, apparently confident the “reformer” heading the department has zero interest in solving the LASD’s problems.

Instead of opening investigations into suspected gang members, Villanueva has become a prominent far-right talking head, appearing on Fox News to say dumb stuff about the “woke left” making it too difficult for law enforcement officers to do their jobs. He claims five decades of departmental gangs are not his problem. Instead, he portrays the problem he refuses to address as fake news used by his opponents to attack him.

One of Villanueva’s first moves as sheriff was to rehire Carl Mandoyan, a fired deputy (and suspected deputy gang member) known around the LASD as “Creepy Carl.” Mandoyan had been terminated for several violations, including suspected domestic violence, stalking, and lying to investigators. Mandoyan also sported a Grim Reapers tattoo, allegedly symbolic of his membership in this LASD gang — something Mandoyan referred to in a taped call in which he threatened a female LASD trainee with ending her law enforcement career. His threats were also physical: he allegedly choked the trainee and twice attempted to break into her home.

Villanueva compared Mandoyan to the falsely accused Duke lacrosse players. The Civil Service Commission upheld the firing but Villanueva quietly hired Mandoyan as his driver during his run for election as Sheriff. Once Villaneuva was in office (thanks to the backing of one of the state’s largest police unions, which obviously knew Villanueva wasn’t the reformer Democrats thought he was), Mandoyan was rehired and rewarded with 18 months of back pay.

Villanueva isn’t the only problem. His wife, Vivian, had plenty of power as well. Being a formed LASD deputy and married to the current Sheriff has its benefits, as those complaining about Villanueva’s refusal to address department misconduct have discovered.

At some point, the East L.A. deputies figured out that Vivian was accessible. “She started building her network,” the mid-career deputy told me. “People associated with East L.A. have gotten promotions multiple times.” The deputy who worked with Villanueva said, “I call it the secret formula—get an introduction from someone in the inner circle, text her, and tell her your sob story.” The arrangement helps Vivian advance loyalists. According to the former insider, Vivian boasts, “I’ve got spies everywhere,” keeping tabs on those who might undermine her husband.

This is what that access and allegiance means in practice.

One particular friend of Vivian’s, Carrie Robles-Placencia, seems to have had her career saved by her proximity to power. One evening in November of 2017, Robles-Placencia, a trainee at East L.A. Station who reportedly had previously worked under Vivian, was driving a department S.U.V. to a call. Without turning on her siren, she ran a red light and collided with another car. In the resulting multi-car accident, Robles-Placencia accelerated onto the sidewalk, where she struck and killed two children, aged seven and nine, who were standing with their mother.

The L.A.P.D., which responded to the accident, found Robles-Placencia at fault, and the county has paid out more than $22 million in settlements. But the district attorney declined to file criminal charges, and Robles-Placencia has reportedly received no discipline. 

Siding with Villanueva or his spouse means being able to step over the cooling corpses of children to collect your paycheck. Robles isn’t a deputy, but she now works for the Sheriff’s “Executive Project Team,” drives a county vehicle, often accompanied by the Sheriff’s wife. Tax payers are not only on the hook for Robles’ county paycheck but for the $22 million in settlements paid to the victims of her reckless driving while training as a LASD deputy.

Beware of self-proclaimed reformers. If and when this Sheriff is ousted from office, the LASD will be even worse than the one he inherited from a sheriff who faces multiple federal investigations. Problems can’t be fixed if the people with the power to fix them don’t believe they’re actually problems. Sheriffs in the United States have far too much power. Just because they’re subject to the whims of voters doesn’t mean they don’t have the power to do an extraordinary amount of damage while in office. Perhaps it’s time to make their positions private, which may make them less subject to public ousting, but far more likely to be shitcanned by local officials when they abuse their positions.

Filed Under: alex villanueva, california, gangs, la sheriffs department, lasd, los angeles, sheriff's gangs

Los Angeles Sheriff’s Deputy Allegedly Removed ‘Unauthorized” Sheriff’s Gang Tattoo With A Bullet

Failures

from the shootings-will-continue-until-morale-improves dept

The Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department is home to several gangs. Even though the current sheriff, Alex Villanueva, thinks this is up for debate (via a threatened lawsuit against the LA City Council), enough evidence (anecdotal and otherwise) points to deputies forming cliques that turn the Thin Blue Line from defensive to offensive.

Like any gang, the LASD’s gangs subject participants to hazing and an unwritten code of silence. Loyalty to the gang is supposed to surpass loyalty to the sheriff’s department or the public these deputies are supposed to serve. As any gang member can attest to, there is strength in numbers and the LASD’s gangs have managed to survive both a federal investigation and public scrutiny.

And, like any gang, a failure to play by these rules is met with punishment. At best, breaking the rules will result in ostracism. In most cases, though, rulebreakers are subjected to violence. Apparently, LASD deputies who are members of LASD gangs aren’t immune from this immutable fact of gang membership.

And like many gangs, the retaliation is generally known for its brutality, rather than its creativity. Yakuza members lose a finger when they’ve fucked up. LASD gang members lose whatever’s handy when the shit goes down, as Cerise Castle reports for KnockLA.

Deputies with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department attempted to shoot a deputy gang tattoo off of a man during a camping trip in Kern County in 2015. Department sources say the deputies shot the tattoo off because an unauthorized change had been made to the design. All deputy gang tattoo changes must be cleared with deputy gang leadership, several sources told Knock LA.

If you’re a fan of inter-agency ultraviolence, KnockLA has posted a photo of the resulting wound. (Content warning: jfc) If you’re a fan of torture porn, this might be your kink. If not, suffice to say tattoo recipients would probably prefer lasers or harsh acids to alter “unauthorized” tattoos.

Here’s what the much vaunted “training and experience” gets you when you combine camping trips (and, presumably, alcohol) with nonconformance to unwritten rules. The bullet to the ankle apparently followed less violent but presumably equally painful methods of altering the tattoo that had offended this deputy’s fellow gang members. ALLEGEDLY.

The shooting occurred when a group of deputies held down the tattooed man while another fired off several rounds of his off-duty weapon and attempted to burn the design off the man’s ankle with the hot barrel of the gun. When the deputy was unable to burn the tattoo off, he fired the gun directly at the other man’s tattoo, according to a source familiar with the incident. The injured deputy was transported from Dove Springs to the Antelope Valley Hospital in Lancaster in a private vehicle, according to lieutenant Bill Smallwood. 

Lest we be sued by Sheriff Alex Villanueva for reporting on the gang members his department houses, we’ll be using the term “alleged” quite often. Allegedly, the deputy whose ankle was nearly removed by a bullet was allowed to access medical retirement, despite the fact the off-duty deputy had his ankle burnt and shot by other off-duty deputies during this ultra-bizarre, unofficial team-building exercise.

The trigger man, however, is ALLEGEDLY well-liked by the current sheriff — the one who insists there are no cliques/gangs operating under his allegedly inattentive nose at the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department.

A source familiar with the incident identified Wyatt Waldron of the Lancaster Sheriff’s Station as the deputy who pulled the trigger. Waldron was promoted to sergeant in 2021 under Sheriff Alex Villanueva.

A true man of the (certain) people, allegedly.

Two years after shooting a fellow deputy in the leg, Waldron was given the “Lifesaving Award” by LASD. 

The shooting happened in 2015. At that point, it was reported as an “accidental discharge.” The LA Times article is headlined “L.A. County deputy accidentally shoots co-worker during camping trip.” The investigation of this incident was handed over to the Kern County Sheriff’s Department, another agency that seemingly has no problem with deputies handing out extrajudicial violence whenever they see fit.

Investigative irregularities are the name of the game, according to this KnockLA report. According to the LASD Inspector General, evidence was mishandled. The gun used to shoot the deputy was transported back to LA in a compartment of a trailer owned by another deputy. This deputy then turned the gun over to a third deputy who finally turned it over to investigators. The deputy who transported the gun then claimed he “couldn’t remember” who handed him the gun or even putting it in his trailer. The deputy who shot Waldron was initially interviewed by the Kern County Sheriff’s Department shortly after the shooting but months later, his statements to the LASD’s Internal Affairs Bureau were inconsistent with his earlier statements. And, despite admitting he had misled Kern County investigators, the LASD’s Internal Affairs Bureau decided not to pursue its investigation into the deputy.

In the end, it’s all deference. Rather than rock the gang-infested boat, the LASD, along with its oversight, decided it would be better to pretend this didn’t happen. And the LASD decided to reward the alleged tattoo shooter with a promotion and a “lifesaving” award that made him appear to be part of the solution to LA’s crime problems, rather than just another criminal destroying what’s left of the Department’s goodwill and trustworthiness.

Filed Under: alex villanueva, gang tattoo, lasd, police gangs

LA Sheriff Announces Investigation Of Journalist Who Exposed Jail Brutality, Insists Everyone Is Wrong About What He Said

Legal Issues

from the sheriff-insists-it-takes-two-to-lie,-one-to-lie-and-one-to-listen dept

When law enforcement officials get caught saying something extremely troublesome at press conferences, the first page of the police playbook is to accuse everyone reporting/retweeting the news of misinterpreting the statements made and/or spreading misinformation. It’s the “my account was hacked” of the Thin Blue Line — a claim no one believes but one that police officials insist is the actual truth.

Enter Los Angeles Sheriff Alex Villanueva. At a recent press conference, he presented this image (via Twitter user @maryangelafitz):

Titled “WHAT DID THEY KNOW AND WHEN DID THEY KNOW IT?,” the presentation included photos of three people. The first two (from left to right) are Eliezer Vera (one of Villanueva’s political rivals) and Max Huntsman, the Inspector General for the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department.

The person on the far right is LA Times journalist Alene Tchekmedyian. Tchekmedyian had recently published two articles detailing excessive force deployment by LASD officers staffing the jail.

The first, published March 25, 2022, was titled “LA sheriff’s deputy knelt on an inmate’s head for three minutes. Officials tried to cover it up.” The post contains a recording from LA County Jail cameras. And it looks more like a deputy kneeling on someone’s neck, hence the consternation expressed in documents obtained by the LA Times.

Here’s what Tchekmedyian reported.

Los Angeles County sheriff’s officials attempted to cover up an incident in which a deputy knelt on the head of a handcuffed inmate for three minutes because they feared the “negative light” it could shed on the department, according to internal records reviewed by The Times.

Department officials were worried about the optics of the kneeling, “given its nature and its similarities to widely publicized George Floyd use of force,” a commander who was critical of the coverup wrote in an internal force review.

They were right to be concerned. George Floyd’s murder was a nationwide flashpoint. They were wrong to cover it up, and that’s what Tchekmedyian prevented the Sheriff’s Department from doing.

The incident happened in March 2021. Nothing happened at the time. The Sheriff’s Department claimed it had not been made aware of this incident until October 2021, five months after it happened. Eli Vera, one of the “mugshots” on Sheriff Villanueva’s press conference poster board, said the Sheriff had actually viewed the recording within “days” of the incident. Inspector General Max Huntsman (also on the Sheriff’s press conference poster board) expressed his consternation at the Sheriff’s Department’s refusal to press charges against the inmate, given that the justification for this action was predicated on alleged criminal resistance.

The fact that they didn’t raises a red flag to the possibility … that the motivation was preventing bad press as alleged.

Tchekmedyian wrote a follow-up article containing more allegations about a Sheriff’s Department cover-up of this excessive force use. It was published April 25, 2022. A legal claim — a precursor to a lawsuit — alleged Sheriff Alex Villanueva was directly involved in the cover-up. The claim says Villanueva saw this footage five days after it happened, but told fellow department officials “We do not need bad media at this time” and took it upon himself to ensure the recording would not be made public.

Sheriff Villanueva failed. Both articles contained the recording, along with several damning statements. Some of those came from Inspector General Max Huntsman, who was investigating the incident and department’s response.

The county’s inspector general, who oversees the Sheriff’s Department, is probing whether Villanueva lied about what he knew and when. And Lt. Jim Braden told The Times that he contacted the FBI to report that he believes the handling of the incident violated department procedures and may have amounted to criminal obstruction of justice or conspiracy.

When pressed for comment following this report, Sheriff Villanueva promised revenge in the form of a press conference.

The Sheriff’s Department announced Monday that Villanueva would hold a news conference Tuesday regarding “false claims” made in a recent lawsuit by a “disgruntled employee.”

Here’s what the Sheriff said at this press conference — one that featured a photo of the LA Times journalist and was recorded by several journalists and broadcast across the web:

With Tchekmedyian looking on from the audience, Villanueva displayed a poster with large photographs of her and two of his longtime foes, political rival Eli Vera and sheriff’s Inspector General Max Huntsman. Arrows pointed from Vera to Huntsman to Tchekmedyian, implying the two men had been involved in providing the video to the reporter. Villanueva also exhibited a list of possible felonies under investigation, including conspiracy, burglary and unauthorized use of a database.“This is stolen property that was removed illegally from people who had some intent — criminal intent — and it’ll be subject to investigation,” Villanueva said. When pressed whether he was investigating the journalist specifically, the sheriff said, “All parties to the act are subjects of the investigation.”

Sheriff Villanueva also said this:

At a news conference on Tuesday, the sheriff said he was investigating “all parties” involved in the leaked video, which he said was “stolen property that was removed illegally.” He stood next to large photos of Ms. Tchekmedyian and two other people.

“What she receives illegally and the L.A. Times uses it, I’m pretty sure that’s a huge complex area of law and freedom of the press and all that,” Sheriff Villanueva said. “However, when it’s stolen material, at some point you actually become part of the story.”

Extremely righteous (and rightful) backlash ensued. Sheriff Villanueva, deservedly stung (repeatedly) for his blatant attack on a journalist who had exposed the wrongdoing of his officers, decided he didn’t deserve to be stung.

In his defense, he offered up blatant bullshit. In a series of tweets, Sheriff Villanueva claimed all the things he said (and multiple witnesses viewed/recorded) weren’t actually said. Here’s a link to the LASD Sheriff’s Twitter thread, which I will quote in its entirety lest he be so severely “misunderstood” again.

It comes in three parts. Here’s the first layer of lies:

(1/3) Resulting from the incredible frenzy of misinformation being circulated, I must clarify at no time today did I state an LA Times reporter was a suspect in a criminal investigation. We have no interest in pursuing, nor are we pursuing, criminal charges against any reporters.

Uh huh. So what did you mean by “All parties are subjects of the investigation?” And what did you mean by “What she receives illegally and the L.A. Times uses it?” Both of those statements — which you made during a press conference many people witnessed — indicate a willingness, if not statement of intent, to investigate a journalist and the paper she writes for. Only the most disingenuous of people (that’s you, Sheriff) would claim the things they said are not the things they said when such said things have been documented and recorded by multiple individuals.

The thread continues:

(2/3) We will conduct a thorough investigation regarding the unlawful disclosure of evidence and documentation in an active criminal case.  The multiple active investigations stemming from this incident will be shared and monitored by an outside law enforcement entity.

Well, if you absolutely have to be involved (and I don’t think you do, Mr. Villanueva), limit your investigation to Department employees. If you feel you need to stray beyond these line, DON’T. Nothing good can come of it. And given the alleged cover-up, maybe you should just (1) shut the fuck up, and (2) get out of the way.

Defensive Bullshit the Third, Keeper of the Community Ill Will and Lord of Contradictory Courtroom Testimony:

(3/3) What should be of interest is the fact the LA Times refuses to acknowledge their reporting, and the account of a disgruntled employee, were thoroughly debunked during today’s press conference.

That’s a weird way to spell “irrefutably confirmed,” Alex.

Riddle me this, Sheriff: If the LA Times journalist was never considered part of the investigation, why did you decide to add her face to your press conference presentation? Follow-up (and I guess this is more of a statement than a question…): if you think the public is stupid enough to buy into your lazy, hapless retcon of your own press conference, you’re too stupid to be entrusted with the immense amount of power (never mind the license to kill) your office affords you. Hopefully, Los Angeles residents will resoundingly vote this brain stem operator out of office this June, because no one deserves to be subjected to the involuntary synapse firings of this brain stem operator ever again.

Filed Under: 1st amendment, alene tchekmedyian, alex villanueva, free speech, intimidation, lasd, reporting
Companies: la times

LA Sheriff Threatens To 'Subject' City Council To 'Defamation Law' If They Won't Stop Calling His Deputies 'Gang Members'

Say That Again

from the pretty-much-the-legal-competence-you-would-expect-from-a-gang-leader dept

The man presiding over a law enforcement agency filled with gangs and cliques would prefer city officials stop referring to his employees as gang members.

Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva has stated that there are no gangs within the Sheriff’s Department, a claim he is obviously unable to back up with facts, because the facts make it clear that the LASD has been (and apparently still is) home to multiple gangs composed of deputies. There’s even a Wikipedia page dedicated to the gangs infesting the Sheriff’s Department.

If you distrust the info on the anyone-can-edit Wikipedia page, there’s also this comprehensive database compiled by journalist Cerise Castle for Knock LA — one that pulls info from public records and court documents to list suspected and verified members of LASD gangs.

Sheriff Villanueva continues to claim there are no gangs within his department. He has also instituted a policy to address the problem he says doesn’t exist, forbidding deputies from “joining any group that commits misconduct.” You’d think this policy would forbid any deputy from being employed by the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department, but I guess that’s not how Villanueva reads his edict.

As for Villanueva’s claim gangs and cliques don’t exist within his department? Well, let’s take a look at what his employees say:

Hundreds of Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies said they have been recruited to join secretive, sometimes gang-like cliques that operate within department stations, according to the findings of a survey by independent researchers.

The anticipated study into the problematic fraternities — which L.A. County officials commissioned the Rand Corp. to conduct in 2019 — found 16% of the 1,608 deputies and supervisors who anonymously answered survey questions had been invited to join a clique, with some invitations having come in the last five years.

Well, all evidence to the contrary aside, Sheriff Villanueva is no longer going to stand idly by while city officials continue to make accurate statements about his problematic agency. He’s issued a… well, not really a “cease and desist” letter [PDF] to the Los Angeles Board of Supervisors demanding (but not really) they stop saying his department has a gang problem. (h/t Adam Steinbaugh)

The letter is a fun read, even more so because Sheriff Villanueva definitely did not want his vaguely threatening fluff to be considered enjoyable for all the wrong reasons. Behold the semi-coherent wrath of a pissed off public servant.

As the elected Sheriff of Los Angeles County, I demand you and other elected leaders, as well as your appointees, immediately cease and desist from using the derogatory term “deputy gangs” when referring to members of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department (Department). This willful defamation of character has injured both individuals and the organization. It also serves no purpose other than to fuel hatred and increase the probability of assault and negative confrontations against our people.

So, it looks like a cease-and-desist (it even uses the words!), but the Sheriff has no power to make this demand. And Villanueva is hopefully using the phrase “defamation of character” in the colloquial, no-relation-to-the-legal-meaning sense of the words, because there’s plenty of evidence out there that would make any accusations about LASD gangs “substantially true” and, therefore, not defamation at all. I know we (and by “we,” I mostly mean courts) don’t expect law enforcement officers to be legal experts, which is good, I guess, because they clearly fucking aren’t.

The letter continues in the same vein: Villanueva bitching, mostly ineffectively, that it’s unfair to his department when city officials say bad things about him and his employees. The next paragraph of the letter basically says the Sheriff’s Department has all the heroes and the Board of Supervisors has all the hypocritical assholes.

My personnel routinely place themselves in harm’s way while serving our community and ask nothing in return, other than a paycheck and maybe a little respect for the tough job they perform. Elected officials have no problem attending the funeral of a peace officer killed in the line of duty and often fight for the opportunity to speak at the podium, but the manner in which some have enthusiastically branded my personnel as “gang members” every opportunity they get is disgusting.

It is completely possible for officials to show their respect for an officer killed in the line of duty while still suspecting the law enforcement agency they work for is home to groups of officers who commit serious misconduct while engaging in gang-like behavior: violent acts, tattoos/clothing/insignias/etc., codes of silence, et al. You know, just like it’s possible for officers of the law to recognize the War on Drugs harms more than it helps.

According to the sheriff’s letter, the only reason board members might refer to deputies as gang members stems from a dismissed lawsuit brought by a former LASD deputy. The letter claims this is the only “evidence” anyone has ever had and that other research arriving at the same conclusions is completely undermined because a single source of information was declared to be untrustworthy by a court decision. That willfully ignores the years of data that shows deputies have formed cliques/gangs within the department. And while that may not be the sole contributing factor to large amounts of misconduct, it certainly hasn’t helped neutralize the “us vs. them” mentality that is the root of so many casual abuses of rights.

From there it gets truly laughable, with Sheriff Villanueva again demonstrating his inability to understand speech-related laws before claiming that referring to LASD gangs is actually a form of bigotry.

Those who want to further undermine the perception of law enforcement use it as hate speech to promote their own agendas, such as defunding law enforcement and redirecting those funds to their own non-profit organizations, many of which are nothing more than sham corporations who operate with virtually zero accountability. Further use of the term will be evidence of your actual underlying intent, which appears to be a campaign to inflict harm upon the reputation of the Department and myself.

First off, calling someone a gang member or implying there are gangs in the LASD isn’t hate speech. It’s not even hate speech in the most ignorant sense of the word. Speech someone doesn’t like is not hate speech, and that’s all that’s really happening here. The Sheriff and his deputies aren’t a protected class, nor is being employed by the LASD an immutable characteristic that can trigger hate crime laws when derogatory language is used. The rest of this is no less stupid. “Further use… will be evidence of your actual underlying intent” to harm the Department. Whatever. This isn’t legally binding and further use will be evidence of nothing.

So very stupid.

As the first fluently Spanish speaking Latino Sheriff in over a hundred years, who supervises a majority Latino workforce, I hope you can see the blatant racial inferences your conscious bias displays every time you choose to attack our Department with this derogatory term.

Um, people were saying the LASD was gang-infested long before you took office, Sheriff. That they’re still saying it doesn’t reflect on you or your multilingual skills. All it says is that the problem persists and it’s now your problem, Sheriff.

Finally, the Sheriff appears to believe this somehow is a valid legal threat, despite the fact he’s unlikely to prevail in a defamation lawsuit against city council members. Here’s how the letter wraps up:

I openly challenge every elected leader, or their appointees, to provide facts to me and name individuals who they can prove are “gang members,” as defined by California Penal Code Section 13670, and subject yourself to defamation laws if wrong.

LOL. Well, this shouldn’t be too hard. Here’s the relevant part of the California Code:

“Law enforcement gang” means a group of peace officers within a law enforcement agency who may identify themselves by a name and may be associated with an identifying symbol, including, but not limited to, matching tattoos, and who engage in a pattern of on-duty behavior that intentionally violates the law or fundamental principles of professional policing, including, but not limited to, excluding, harassing, or discriminating against any individual based on a protected category under federal or state antidiscrimination laws, engaging in or promoting conduct that violates the rights of other employees or members of the public, violating agency policy, the persistent practice of unlawful detention or use of excessive force in circumstances where it is known to be unjustified, falsifying police reports, fabricating or destroying evidence, targeting persons for enforcement based solely on protected characteristics of those persons, theft, unauthorized use of alcohol or drugs on duty, unlawful or unauthorized protection of other members from disciplinary actions, and retaliation against other officers who threaten or interfere with the activities of the group.

To sum up: the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department is a gang associated with an identifying symbol that engages in all of the listed behavior. Therefore, it should be declared illegal under state law and disbanded.

There are few things more enjoyable than sternly-worded letters that are 50% bluster, 50% unintentionally hilarious. Recipients of this letter should take the Sheriff up on his dare and let him know just how many bad apples he’s overseeing. If nothing else, council members should send Villanueva a “Thanks for the laugh. I really needed that.” in response to his declaration of keyboard war.

Filed Under: alex villanueva, cease and desist, defamation, deputy gangs, gangs, hate speech, la, lasd

Data Shows LA Sheriff's Department Is Stopping Tons Of Latino Bicyclists, Rarely Finding Anything Illegal

Legal Issues

from the nothing-lousier-than-a-biased-dragnet dept

Law enforcement doesn’t just engage in pretextual stops of cars. Bicyclists are on the radar as well, especially if they happen to be minorities. That’s according to data obtained by the Los Angeles Times, which shows the LA Sheriff’s Department (which has buried the needle on the far end of “problematic” for years) is targeting bike riders with tactics that fall somewhere between pretextual stop and stop-and-frisk.

A Los Angeles Times investigation found deputies search 85% of bike riders they stop even though they often have no reason to suspect they’ll find something illegal. Most bicyclists were held in the backseat of patrol cars while deputies rummaged through their belongings or checked for arrest warrants.

The Times’ analysis of more than 44,000 bike stops logged by the Sheriff’s Department since 2017 found that 7 of every 10 stops involve Latino cyclists, and bike riders in poorer communities with large nonwhite populations are stopped and searched far more often than those in more affluent, whiter parts of the county.

Because they’re not in vehicles, but rather on them, the stops are more analogous to Terry stops, which are supposed to be supported by reasonable suspicion. Bikes make that rights-skirting math even easier by introducing a set of obscure, rarely enforced traffic laws to use as pretexts for stops that often tend to end with a search of the rider and any belongings they have with them.

Some cyclists interviewed by the Times said they had been stopped on multiple occasions. Most found the stops — for harmless infractions like missing reflectors or riding on a sidewalk (bike lanes are still pretty much a luxury in most of the county) — made them feel angry or humiliated. Many respondents also recognized the stops for what they were, no matter what was said by deputies performing stops: fishing expeditions targeting minority bike riders.

Deputies seem to operate with the assumption that someone riding a bike by choice is a criminal.

Many bicyclists said they were asked if they were on probation or parole and if they had drugs or weapons. The Sheriff’s Department data mirror their experiences. Deputies asked 93% of riders about their probation or parole status.

This low-level oppression has resulted in a sort of defeatism taking hold in those harassed by officers.

Some cyclists shrugged off the encounters as an inconvenience that comes with living in high-crime neighborhoods.

This is something cops argue in court, often successfully. But nowhere in the Bill of Rights does it say these rights don’t need to be respected in areas that criminals frequent.

The Sheriff’s Department has defended the biased bike stop program as essential to fighting crime, claiming (unbelievably) that people using bikes for transportation are generally criminals.

Lt. Lorena Rodriguez, a department spokeswoman, said riding a bike allows criminals “to traverse a neighborhood unnoticed, faster and safer than on foot, and additionally makes it easier to avoid police contact. We are not conducting traffic stops of persons obviously engaged in the use of a bicycle for exercise or amusement.”

But if cyclists are generally criminals, the Sheriff’s Department sucks at sniffing out criminal activity. Deputies perform a lot of stops. But they don’t do much actual crimefighting.

For all the stops and searches, deputies rarely catch criminals. During searches, they find illegal items just 8% of the time, The Times’ analysis shows. Weapons were seized just 164 times — less than half a percent of all searches.

The Department’s justification for stopping and searching so many bicyclists doesn’t hold up. There’s nothing about the end result that suggests targeting cyclists for minor violations is taking dangerous criminals off the street. All it’s doing is allowing deputies to engage in fishing expeditions that overwhelmingly target a single demographic. It’s far easier than stopping cars, and the county’s bike laws help ensure there’s always a reason to stop someone, even if issuing fix-it tickets is generally understood by deputies to be largely beside the point. It’s an easy bake recipe for rights violations that will rarely be challenged in court, either by criminal defendants or plaintiffs in civil suits.

Filed Under: bike stops, lasd, police, pretextual stops