Faced with lawsuits, costly settlements and the continued existence of “deputy gangs” Wednesday LA County’s new sheriff unveiled the departments first "Office of Constitutional Policing."
“I want to make sure everybody understands that this is a challenge that this department has faced for decades,” Sheriff Robert Luna said. “It's not going to be solved overnight. It's going to take a lot of work.”
This new office will be tasked with helping to eradicate all deputy gangs from the department, in collaboration with the Undersheriff, the Civilian Oversight Commission and the Inspector General. Luna also emphasized that the office will also work to better policies and training procedures to ensure that the department is engaged in constitutional practices and reduce instances of excessive force being used against citizens.
LASD has previously had offices such as the Public Integrity Unit and “constitutional policing advisors”, but they no longer exist.
Get Southern California news, weather forecasts and entertainment stories to your inbox. Sign up for NBC LA newsletters.
“The big difference I see is that we're going to have much more than just two attorneys,” Luna said. “We're going to have an entire team.”
Luna’s choice to head the new department appears itself to be a message to the rank and file. Eileen Decker is a former U.S. Attorney who oversaw the successful prosecution of former Sheriff Lee Baca, Undersheriff Paul Tanaka and 20 other deputies as part of a corruption scandal in 2014.
“The prior constitutional policing advisors were not as engaged in the oversight of all the consent decrees, court settlement agreements that have come into play in the last few years,” Decker said. “There will be a team of people attorneys, investigators, auditors, compliance individuals, all involved in these efforts on the consent decrees, settlement agreements, pending and expected court judgments. We will be working in unison for the entire department as opposed to a piecemeal approach.”
Allegations of secret deputy gangs has been a pervasive issue within the Sheriff’s Department for years, and Inspector General Max Huntsman, created a list of more than 40 sheriff’s deputies who he said were members of gang-like groups operating in multiple stations. According to a report released by Loyola Marymount University in 2021, 18 such groups have existed over the past 50 years. These groups include the Executioners at the Compton station, the Reapers at the South LA station, and the Banditos at the East LA station.
“At the end of the day, we're accountable to our community in the county,” Luna said at the press conference. “And until we prove otherwise, the problem exists.”
A lawsuit filed in 2019 by eight deputies at the East LA station alleged they were being harassed by Banditos members who would not send back up on dangerous calls and pressured them to leave their jobs.
Former Sheriff Alex Villanueva said that the Banditos group “no longer exists” at the East LA station during a Civilian Oversight Commission meeting in 2021. However, that same summer, the eight deputies updated their lawsuit to state that the group added 10 new members.
“I’m telling you what 99% of the employees I'm running into, they don't like this department talked about in that gang fashion,” Luna said. “They're embarrassed by it, and they should be."
