For at least 50 years, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department has been plagued by secretive "deputy gangs" — organized subgroups of deputy sheriffs who allegedly engage in violence, corruption and illegal activity. And for almost as many years, reformers have hoped to eradicate those gangs, going back to the Kolts Commission 30 years ago, which called for them to be "rooted out."
But they're still with us, according to the report by special counsel Bert Deixler, which was released by the Sheriff Civilian Oversight Commission earlier this month. Deixler and his team, after hearing from approximately 80 witnesses, concluded that at least half a dozen gangs or cliques operate in the department. They have names such as the Executioners, the Banditos, the Reapers and the Rattlesnakes; their members wear tattoos of skeletons, rifles, skulls and snakes.
Members of these groups, the report says, have falsified reports, harassed colleagues, undermined department morale and violated citizens' rights. They've taken control of many patrol stations through a "shadow" chain of command, and those who dare challenge them have been known to find rats on their doorsteps or to have the lug nuts on their wheels loosened.
