L.A. County Sheriff Disputes Claims Deputy-Led Gangs Still Active

Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva berated other public officials and the media on Wednesday at a news conference that was supposed to be about a recent report that deputy-led gangs are still active within the department, despite changes made to root them out.

The Rand Corporation report released on Sept. 10 found that hundreds of deputies — about 16% of the 1,608 rank-and-file employees and supervisors who responded to a voluntary survey — had been asked within the last five years to join one of several cliques within the department.

Villanueva disputed that the gangs are still active. He said nearly 30 years ago as a young deputy, he had worked alongside members of the Cavemen, one group identified in the Rand report. He said he was not asked to join the Cavemen.

"They're all retired," he said. "They no longer exist."

Through interviews with deputies, however, the Rand researchers said they found that the internal gangs had become "a normalized part of the organization."

They found that at least 40% of those surveyed reported that the groups were more common at stations in high-crime areas, like South and East L.A. While some deputies surveyed said they perceived the groups as "motivational tools" that promote camaraderie, around 37% said the groups should be banned altogether from the department.

The report found that some of the groups formed around social activities, like groups of deputies who drink together after work. But others, like the Banditos in East L.A. and the Executioners in Compton, have existed for decades in certain stations.

That second type of group often requires members to get tattoos showing their allegiance, and have been accused of targeting members of the public and other deputies with violence and intimidation.

For example, a group of deputies suing the department accused members of the Banditos of a violent assault at Kennedy Hall in East L.A. in September 2019; one of the targeted deputies said he was choked to the point of losing consciousness, while another was punched repeatedly in the face.

The most violent alleged cliques have also been accused of being involved in a number of shootings and aggressive uses of force against civilians.

Even as he sought to downplay the gangs, Villanueva on Wednesday emphasized that he had also enacted rules intended to go after them. He created a policy barring deputies from joining subgroups accused of misconduct. He said among the 37 recommendations offered in the Rand study, his department had already enacted 30 of them.

He noted more than 800 deputies had been disciplined in the last two and a half years. And he said he'd recommended around 120 deputies to be fired for various infractions, including sexual misconduct and domestic violence.

It was not clear how many of those deputies were fired specifically for misconduct against other deputies, however. At least five were fired for the Kennedy Hall incident, Villaneuva said.

Still, other public officials have been skeptical that these policies are widely enforced.

The Board of Supervisors, which commissioned the report, and the Civilian Oversight Commission, which oversees the Sheriff's Department, have disputed that Villanueva has done enough to eliminate the groups.

Members of the Commission have said that Villanueva's changes, like moving some deputies from one station to another, were too limited to have a real effect.

Inspector General Max Huntsman has said that the Sheriff's Department has continued to refuse to release the names of deputies under investigation for misconduct.

The standoff led to the Commission ordering Villanueva to appear before it to testify about the groups, even issuing a subpoena to force him to speak to members on Thursday.

On Wednesday, Villanueva said he would not honor that subpoena. And he continued to lash out at criticism from the Commission and Huntsman, who he called "biased." He has repeatedly criticized the Board of Supervisors, who appoint the nine-member commission, for cutting his budget last year.

The commission and Supervisors Hilda Solis and Sheila Kuehl have called on Villanueva to resign. The Board of Supervisors has also previously sought to find ways to remove Villanueva as he became more combative throughout his tenure.

As he has done increasingly since the beginning of his tenure, Villanueva criticized the local media for negative coverage of him. In the middle of his news conference, the sheriff pointed to a slide in his presentation with the logos of several media outlets that wrote stories about the Rand report.

Villanueva said the report should have included the changes his department had made to address the gangs, complaining that Rand hadn't contacted him to get his comment for the report.

He also said the report should have included a timeline of when the deputies were asked to join the gang — either during his tenure or his that of his predecessor, Jim McDonnell.

A spokesman for the department said Wednesday it received the report as soon as it was made public.

"We appreciate the Rand report," said Lt. John Satterfield. But he also said the report was "a missed opportunity."

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