Gangs within Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department banned with new policy

The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department announced a new policy Wednesday that bans gangs among deputies in the department, an issue county officials have said has spanned decades.
Several past investigations by the county’s Office of the Inspector General (OIS) have uncovered allegations of violent crimes linked to at least 19 gangs within the sheriff’s department — with 59 legal claims going back to the early 1990s that have resulted in more than $54 million in settlement payouts for incidents tied to these crime groups.
But the new policy follows some legal wrangling as a lawsuit blocked a recent investigation by the OIS.
Last year, the county agency sent a letter to 35 deputies, asking for information about the “Banditos” and the “Executioners,” two of the more than two dozen gangs authorities say are within the department and have been investigated over the years. In the letter, the OIG asked deputies — unless they planned to plead the 5th Amendment — to show photos of any tattoos on their left or right leg or any tattoos which may resemble those connected to the two gangs. 
However, the OIG didn’t end up continuing that investigation due to a court order blocking it.
The Association for Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs (ALDS), which represents deputies within LASD, sued LA County and the OIS, saying such an investigation would violate constitutional and privacy rights of the deputies as well as labor laws. 
In July 2023, a court ruled in favor of ALDS’s allegation of violated labor laws and issued a preliminary injunction that brought the probe to a halt. 
Earlier this month, a court hearing in that lawsuit was held in Los Angeles. Just ahead of it, the American Civil Liberties Union and other community groups gathered outside the courthouse to speak out and criticized the sheriff’s deputy group for filing the lawsuit, alleging it is protecting organized violent crime within the sheriff’s department.
At the time, ALDS released a statement saying it “does not defend misconduct” but that the deputies are owed due process, calling the ACLU and other advocacy groups in opposition to the lawsuit “anti-cop radicals and other misguided people.”
The “Banditos” was described by county investigators as a gang operating out of the East LA Sheriff’s Station in a 2021 OIS report entitled, “50 Years of Deputy Gangs in the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.” 
Loyola Law School researchers helped compile the report.
“Bandito leaders refer to themselves as ‘shot-callers,’ a term borrowed from the leaders of prison gangs,” the report states, explaining deputies who are part of the gang share a common leg tattoo that depicts a skeleton with a bushy mustache called a brocha, which is wearing a sombrero and holding a pistol. “If the deputies resist recruitment, the gang tries to ‘roll out’ the deputies, getting them to quit the East Los Angeles Station.”
The new LASD policy issued Wenesday, entitled “Prohibition – Law Enforcement Gangs and Hate Groups,” includes clear definitions of terms such as “law enforcement gang, hate group, membership in a hate group, and participation in a hate group – definitions which exist in California law,” according to a department statement about the new policy.
It prohibits participating in, or getting others to take part in, a so-called law enforcement gang and requires LASD to investigate allegations of such groups and refer them for prosecution if necessary.
According to LASD, the policy is consistent with the California Law Enforcement Accountability Reform Act and the California Law Enforcement Accountability Reform Act among other state statutes. 
Check back for updates to this developing story.