Gangs Abound within Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department

The Los Angeles Police Department is one of the most respected police departments in America and one of the largest to boot. When comparing it to the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department, LAPD obviously gets more attention Tyler Durden of ZeroHedge noted that the LA Sheriff’s Department is no joke, “it’s responsible for policing 153 unincorporated communities and 42 cities across a sizable patch of southern LA County” – but it doesn’t get nearly as much attention as its neighboring agency, the LAPD, which patrols the City of Los Angeles.”

Due to the LA Sheriff’s Department’s less conspicuous profile, criminals have taken advantage of this situation to infiltrate this law enforcement body and establish gang-style fraternities within the organization. These groups are referred to as “secret cliques” or “subgroups”, but Durden noted, “they’re just gangs” if we’re being brutally honest.

According to the RAND Corporation, the county government has identified four gangs with the names “the Banditos” and “the Executioners.”

The public policy think tank contends that of the roughly 10,000 individuals in the force, about ⅙ could be members of the aforementioned gangs. Though these figures could be a conservative estimate.

As Durden observed, the “subgroups” have “pervasive initiation rituals, tattoos, hand signs”. Part of these gangs’ initiation rituals usually involves them assaulting people who are in custody. Since 1990, the country has been compelled to pay about $55 million in “subgroup related judgments”, which includes $21 million in the past decade alone. The gang activity has been so prevalent that it has required LSPD leadership to use internal discipline. 

According to a law enforcement source, these sub-entities are pretty much criminal gangs when one soberly analyzes their behavior..

“I can’t say whether the Regulators or Vikings or Banditos are a criminal street gang, but they’re close to it,” said the law enforcement source who identified himself as a “county stakeholder representative.” The source added: “The reason you can’t answer that is that it’s never been investigated…The culture is so pervasive within the department. There are many people who are in places of management that may have been part of the same cliques, or precursors of them.”

Other sources claim that gangs pose threats to other deputies.

Members of the Banditos have tense relations with co-workers who don’t belong to the gang.

The report details “alleged workplace harassment, incivility, intimidation, and retaliation, leading to ‘brawls in the parking lot.'”

Furthermore, the RAND report asserts that Banditos have committed violent acts against inmates in LASD custody as an initiation ritual. Deputies who want to join the gang must use “unnecessary force” before they can be branded with the gang’s tattoo — a skeleton donning a Sombrero while holding a revolver.

Most of the time, supervisors come to their deputies’s defense when dealing with use of force allegations. Sheriff Villanueva has claimed to have cleaned up the department, but the RAND report says otherwise.

With increased immigration to the U.S., it’s very conceivable that LASD and LAPD could witness ethnic gangs grow within their ranks. A more diverse populace provides a steady pipeline of potential gang members that could be incorporated in these law enforcement bodies’ ranks.

These are the many perils of diversity. It’s often forgotten that the Italian mafia was largely weakened thanks to the immigration moratorium legislation of the 1920s, which deprived them of many potential recruits. In time, many Italian Americans grew up, assimilated, and left their migrant ghettos. But with a constant stream of migration, ethnic gangs will always have fresh bodies to recruit from. 

LA’s current problem with gang activity within law enforcement bodies is just another reason why an immigration moratorium is long overdue in the U.S.