Throughout 4 hours of combative testimony in entrance of the Civilian Oversight Fee on Friday morning, former Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva tried to reduce the issue of deputy gangs, refusing to acknowledge their existence and alleging the issue of tattooed subgroups is “really disappearing” from the division.
“You’re nonetheless attempting to faux that deputy gangs exist and that they function within the countryside pillaging and plundering,” he advised particular counsel Bert Deixler. Minutes earlier than, Villanueva testified that if the division removed all deputies with controversial tattoos the county must fireplace so many individuals that it could create a “gargantuan public security disaster.”
The previous sheriff, presently working for county supervisor, advised the fee he by no means did a scientific investigation into deputy gangs. He stated he didn’t ask staff concerning the nature of their tattoos, and didn’t query his high management about their involvement within the teams, though his former chief of employees publicly admitted to as soon as being a member of the Grim Reapers, linked to the now-closed Lennox station.
For years, Villanueva defied subpoenas to testify underneath oath. It was solely after a county decide scheduled a listening to to determine whether or not to order him to conform that he reversed course. Although there have been no main surprises in Friday’s testimony, fee chair Sean Kennedy stated the listening to served an necessary function: displaying that even the county’s former high cop can face robust questions.
“It’s important that an elected sheriff be held accountable when he flouts oversight subpoenas,” Kennedy advised The Instances on Saturday. Demonstrating that, he stated, additionally “places the strain” on the present sheriff to proceed transferring ahead along with his plans to rid the division of deputy gangs.
Sheriff Robert Luna, who took workplace in 2022, vowed final yr to “eradicate all deputy gangs” from the division. However the issue has vexed oversight officers and county leaders for years, and there’s no clear path to eliminating them.
For 5 a long time, the Sheriff’s Division has been affected by rogue teams of deputies accused of working roughshod over sure stations and selling a tradition of violence. The teams are generally identified by names such because the Executioners, the Banditos, the Regulators and the Little Devils, and members usually have matching, sequentially numbered tattoos that includes macabre imagery.
Final yr, Inspector Common Max Huntsman ordered almost three dozen deputies to undergo questioning about deputy gangs and present investigators their tattoos within the hope of compiling an inventory of potential gang members. However the unions filed go well with and a decide quickly blocked the county watchdog’s inquiries.
On the identical time, the sheriff has been working to place in place a stronger coverage banning participation in deputy gangs, although the most recent proposal remains to be being hammered out with the unions. Although Villanueva applied an anti-gang coverage in 2020, critics stated it didn’t go far sufficient.
The oversight fee, in the meantime, has been attempting to analyze deputy gangs for years, regardless of ongoing issues with reluctant witnesses. The previous undersheriff, Tim Murakami, has but to adjust to the fee’s subpoena efforts — however Deixler nonetheless raised questions on his affiliations throughout Friday’s listening to.
Minutes after the testimony started, Deixler performed a 2022 clip of Villanueva likening deputy gangs to unicorns.
“Everyone is aware of what a unicorn appears to be like like, however I problem you, identify one,” he stated throughout a televised pre-election debate. “Title a single deputy gang member.”
Then Deixler put a photograph of a unicorn on the display screen and requested: “That’s a unicorn, isn’t it, sir?”
Seconds later, he displayed an image of the previous undersheriff and, referencing the identify of an alleged deputy gang linked to the East Los Angeles station, stated: “And that’s a Caveman, isn’t it, sir?”
Villanueva bristled, stiffly telling Deixler, “That’s a former undersheriff.”
At one level, Deixler requested Villanueva whether or not he’d been a Caveman himself, which the previous sheriff denied.
Regardless of the educational setting at Loyola Legislation College, the particular listening to on deputy gangs — the fee’s ninth previously two years — was marked by spectacle and bluster. Viewers members interrupted typically with cheers, jeers and obscenities, whereas the previous sheriff repeatedly insulted the fee, the inspector normal, the media and the particular counsel’s strains of inquiry, which he known as “dumb” and “appalling.”
Deixler forcefully questioned Villanueva — at instances shouting questions — about among the most publicized deputy teams, in addition to a newly revealed one first made public final week in The Instances. That group, the Trade Indians, got here to mild when the division started investigating an off-duty struggle within the parking zone of a Montclair bowling alley and found that among the deputies concerned allegedly had Trade Indians tattoos.
As soon as Villanueva admitted figuring out concerning the incident, Deixler questioned whether or not he’d been conscious of it in late 2022 when he in contrast deputy gangs to unicorns. The previous sheriff stated he solely realized of the investigation as he was leaving workplace, and that it was an instance of “misconduct” at a social occasion, not proof of gang conduct.
Villanueva stated he didn’t ask folks what “ink they’ve on their our bodies,” and that in his time in workplace he “by no means examined anybody’s tattoo.” Even after then-Chief April Tardy — who’s now the undersheriff — testified to the fee that the Banditos met the authorized definition of a regulation enforcement gang, Villanueva stated he didn’t launch an investigation.
“We elected to not contact this matter solely as a result of it grew to become a scorching political potato that you just guys have been keen to leap on,” he stated, including that he thought Tardy’s testimony was false.
As a substitute, he stated, he spent his time in workplace centered on rooting out misconduct, which he argued was extra necessary than investigating tattoos or subgroups.
“It’s no secret there are subgroups inside the Sheriff’s Division,” he stated. “They exist in all places, and they’re going to at all times exist.”
Calling them gangs, he stated, is “lacking the important thing component — that’s misconduct.”
For among the group members who turned out to look at the listening to, the takeaways appeared predictable.
“He’s nonetheless denying deputy gangs exist, and he’s nonetheless denying that gang tattoos are an issue within the division,” stated Stephanie Luna, whose nephew was killed by deputies in 2018. “He stated the identical issues he’s been saying for years, however multi function shot.”
However Friday’s listening to might not be the one alternative to query Villanueva. When the testimony ended, Deixler nonetheless had questions left to ask — and the fee signaled curiosity in calling the previous sheriff again in March.