This is a list of gangs whose members are associated with the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department (LASD) (typically deputies). Press reports indicate the LASD has had a problem with gangs since at least the 1970s which has expanded to at least 18 gangs. [1] The department has used the term "cliques" when discussing these groups. [2]
The 1992 Kolts Commission report said these were found “particularly at stations in areas heavily populated by minorities—the so-called ‘ghetto stations'—and deputies at those stations recruit persons similar in attitude to themselves.” [3] The first deputy gang acknowledged by the LASD was the "Little Devils" in a later-released internal memo in 1973. One or more deputy gangs are believed to have been involved in the death of Los Angeles Times reporter and law enforcement critic Ruben Salazar during the National Chicano Moratorium March against the Vietnam War on August 29, 1970. [4]
In July 2021, U.S. Representative Maxine Waters called for a United States Department of Justice investigation into allegations that a violent deputy gang known as the Executioners was running the Compton station of the LASD. [5]
A report released in early 2023 revealed that at least six deputy gangs remain active. [6]
Compton is a city located in the Gateway Cities region of southern Los Angeles County, California, United States, situated south of downtown Los Angeles. Compton is one of the oldest cities in the county, and on May 11, 1888, was the eighth city in Los Angeles County to incorporate. As of the 2020 census, the city had a total population of 95,740. It is known as the "Hub City" due to its geographic centrality in Los Angeles County. Neighborhoods in Compton include Sunny Cove, Leland, downtown Compton, and Richland Farms.
Paul K. Tanaka is an American convicted felon, former politician, and former law enforcement officer who served with the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department until his conviction in 2016. He was convicted April 4, 2016, in Federal Court of conspiracy to obstruct justice and obstruction of justice. Tanaka served as Undersheriff of Los Angeles County from 2011 to 2013. He was also mayor of the City of Gardena, California. His tenure has provoked controversy due to allegations of violence, corruption, and alleged membership in the Lynwood Vikings, a deputy gang, which was described as a "neo-Nazi, white supremacist gang" by a federal judge.
The Compton Police Department was the municipal law enforcement agency for the city of Compton, California until it was disbanded by the City Council in September 2000. The Compton City Council then contracted with the County of Los Angeles for law enforcement services provided by the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department.
The Avenues, also known as Avenidas or AVE's, is a Mexican/Mexican American criminal street gang mostly in Los Angeles County, California. They originally started as a social club for local Latino youths to protect themselves from other violent youths. The Avenues, like most Mexican gangs in Los Angeles, are under the direct control of the Mexican Mafia when sent to State, County, or Federal prisons.
The History of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department began with its founding in 1850 as the first professional police force in the Los Angeles area.
The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department (LASD), officially the County of Los Angeles Sheriff's Department, is a law enforcement agency serving Los Angeles County, California. LASD is the largest sheriff's department in the United States and the third largest local police agency in the United States, following the New York Police Department, and the Chicago Police Department. LASD has approximately 18,000 employees, 9,915 sworn deputies and 9,244 unsworn members. It is sometimes confused with the similarly-named but separate Los Angeles Police Department which provides law enforcement services within the city of Los Angeles, which is the county seat of Los Angeles County, although both departments have their headquarters in downtown Los Angeles.
Rancho Dominguez is an unincorporated community in Los Angeles County, California, United States. Rancho Dominguez is located between the cities of Compton, Long Beach and Carson.
Barriox13, also known as Barrio13 or B13, is a highly active Sureños street gang based in South Los Angeles, with over 5,000 members, many of whom are still active. The gang is divided into West Side Barriox13 and East Side Barriox13, with all members loyal to the larger Barriox13 faction. It was founded in the early 1970s near El Segundo Boulevard and San Pedro Street in South Los Angeles, California. Originally, the gang formed for self-protection and has remained loyal to the Mexican Mafia prison gang.
The Bounty Hunter Watts Bloods, also known as the Bounty Hunter Bloods, is a "set" of the Bloods gang alliance situated in the Nickerson Gardens public housing projects in Watts, Los Angeles.
The Lynwood Vikings is one of several deputy gangs of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department (LASD). The Vikings, formerly based at the now-defunct Lynwood station, are composed of sworn deputy sheriffs in the LASD.
Alejandro Villanueva is an American law enforcement officer who served as the 33rd sheriff of Los Angeles County, California from 2018 until 2022. He defeated incumbent sheriff Jim McDonnell in the 2018 L.A. County Sheriff's race, making him the first to unseat an incumbent in over 100 years. Before becoming Sheriff, he was a lieutenant with the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department.
Andres Guardado was an 18-year-old Salvadoran-American man shot in the back and killed by a deputy sheriff from the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department on June 18, 2020, in the unincorporated community of West Rancho Dominguez, California, just outside of the Harbor Gateway section of the City of Los Angeles. Guardado ran from two uniformed police officers into an alley, where he died after being shot by deputies. Seven shots were fired and Guardado was hit in the upper torso. Police say that Guardado produced a handgun during the chase. Investigators do not believe it was fired. Accounts of the incident are disputed between police and witnesses. Police stated they were searching for footage of the incident. Store-owner Andrew Heney reported that several cameras at the scene, including a digital video recorder that stored surveillance footage, were taken and destroyed by police.
Dijon Kizzee, an African-American man, was shot and killed in the Los Angeles County community of Westmont on August 31, 2020, by deputies of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department (LASD). For days, protesters gathered outside the South Los Angeles sheriff's station. By September 6, those demonstrations had escalated to clashes, with deputies firing projectiles and tear gas at the crowds and arresting 35 people over four nights of unrest.
The Compton Executioners is a deputy gang within the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department (LASD). In July 2021, U.S. Congressional Representative Maxine Waters called for a Department of Justice inquiry into the existence of the gang.
The 2022 Los Angeles County elections were held on November 8, 2022, in Los Angeles County, California, with nonpartisan blanket primary elections for certain offices being held on June 7. Two of the five seats of the Board of Supervisors were up for election, as well as two of the countywide elected officials, the Sheriff and the Assessor. In addition, elections were held for the Superior Court, along with two ballot measures.
Cerise Castle is an American journalist. She received the IWMF Courage in Journalism Award and the American Mosaic Journalism Prize for her investigative series on deputy gangs in the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department.
Max Huntsman is an American attorney who became the first Inspector General of Los Angeles County, California in 2013. He is recognized for his oversight of the county's law enforcement agencies, with a focus on constitutional policing and justice administration. Huntsman graduated from Yale Law School and started his career as a civil servant in 1991, at the Los Angeles District Attorney's Office, where he handled political corruption and police misconduct cases.
Since the 1970s, several deputies of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department have formed gangs in which membership is exclusive to certain sheriff's deputies, often along ethnic lines, and requires certain acts, such as police violence, to be initiated into said gang. Members are often tattooed and are expected to maintain the blue wall of silence, fabricate evidence, engage in police corruption, and engage in criminal activity such as vandalism and homicide, among other things. Historically, almost all instances of deputy gang violence has either been ignored by the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office or the office has stood by the members of the deputy gangs, alongside the tolerance or assistance of the county sheriff. Although not unique to the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, it suffers from the most prolific case of the existence of law enforcement gangs in the state.