LA Deputy Gangs Protected from the Top
June 2, 2022 10:24 AM Subscribe
Alex Villanueva, sheriff of LA County, campaigned on reforming the department. During his first days in office, he seemingly moved against the Banditos, one of the deputy gangs that have long infested the three-billion-dollar-a-year law 'enforcement' agency. As the New Yorker showed this week, however, Villanueva has protected the gangs and ruled the department in a child's idea of the style of a political operator.
"Failing to eradicate the deputy gangs creates financial liability for the county. Since 1990, according to the Office of the Inspector General, settlements involving deputies with gang affiliations have cost taxpayers at least fifty-four million dollars."
"Villanueva’s time in office has been marked by a string of scandals and lawsuits implicating him—and his wife, Vivian, a retired deputy—in abuses of power. He has responded by attacking whistle-blowers and refusing to submit to oversight. The state attorney general opened a review of Villanueva’s pattern of investigating critics and rivals."
"According to the deputy who worked with Villanueva, [Villanueva] and [his wife] Vivian would binge-watch “House of Cards” and “Designated Survivor” with Mandoyan. “They took a lot from those shows,” he said. “They learned how to be political, how ruthless politics are. Their whole mind-set was, Wow, look at how the Kevin Spacey character was able to coördinate certain things and still come out on top.”"
"Failing to eradicate the deputy gangs creates financial liability for the county. Since 1990, according to the Office of the Inspector General, settlements involving deputies with gang affiliations have cost taxpayers at least fifty-four million dollars."
"Villanueva’s time in office has been marked by a string of scandals and lawsuits implicating him—and his wife, Vivian, a retired deputy—in abuses of power. He has responded by attacking whistle-blowers and refusing to submit to oversight. The state attorney general opened a review of Villanueva’s pattern of investigating critics and rivals."
"According to the deputy who worked with Villanueva, [Villanueva] and [his wife] Vivian would binge-watch “House of Cards” and “Designated Survivor” with Mandoyan. “They took a lot from those shows,” he said. “They learned how to be political, how ruthless politics are. Their whole mind-set was, Wow, look at how the Kevin Spacey character was able to coördinate certain things and still come out on top.”"
Their whole mind-set was, Wow, look at how the Kevin Spacey character was able to coördinate certain things and still come out on top.”
This isn't at all important, but taking your inspiration from a TV character whose writers made sure he came out on top is brain-meltingly stupid. Of course he came out on top! He's a fictional character and that's what his writers decided would happen! Aaargh!
posted by BungaDunga at 10:55 AM on June 2, 2022 [35 favorites]
This isn't at all important, but taking your inspiration from a TV character whose writers made sure he came out on top is brain-meltingly stupid. Of course he came out on top! He's a fictional character and that's what his writers decided would happen! Aaargh!
posted by BungaDunga at 10:55 AM on June 2, 2022 [35 favorites]
I wish the guy before Villanueva had gotten more of a chance, at least he was from outside the culture. It's rotten from the top down, and has been for decades. The only way to fix it is a massive culture shift, and when you've got 18,000 people at work over all of LA County, it's not so easy to fire everyone (or make everyone re-interview/qualify for their roles) and start over. But that's what needs to happen.
LACSD has a lot of good people working for it, people I know personally. The deputies cover a huge area, with wildly different job roles, and the administration has made training decisions that are making it very difficult to effect any real change from within. New deputies are automatically assigned to Custody Division (Courts and Jails) for 2-4 years before being eligible for transfer out to a patrol division. I don't imagine that's helping anyone's empathy for the people they're supposed to protect and serve.
Burn it down from the top, bring in good people from other agencies and start the fuck over.
posted by ApathyGirl at 11:11 AM on June 2, 2022 [7 favorites]
LACSD has a lot of good people working for it, people I know personally. The deputies cover a huge area, with wildly different job roles, and the administration has made training decisions that are making it very difficult to effect any real change from within. New deputies are automatically assigned to Custody Division (Courts and Jails) for 2-4 years before being eligible for transfer out to a patrol division. I don't imagine that's helping anyone's empathy for the people they're supposed to protect and serve.
Burn it down from the top, bring in good people from other agencies and start the fuck over.
posted by ApathyGirl at 11:11 AM on June 2, 2022 [7 favorites]
That "long infested" link is a 15-part investigative series from 2021. I've read the first two and I have to stop and go back to work. It all feels like we are racing towards an inflection point when these old rubbish beliefs about cops, crime and punishment are no longer able to sustain or justify the violence
posted by zenon at 11:18 AM on June 2, 2022 [6 favorites]
posted by zenon at 11:18 AM on June 2, 2022 [6 favorites]
They say there are good cops. But my definition of a good cop is one who doesn't maintain silence when they're confronted with rampant corruption. And there are precious few, if any, of those.
posted by tommasz at 11:23 AM on June 2, 2022 [25 favorites]
posted by tommasz at 11:23 AM on June 2, 2022 [25 favorites]
Shut it all down. Start over.
posted by bleep at 11:28 AM on June 2, 2022 [7 favorites]
posted by bleep at 11:28 AM on June 2, 2022 [7 favorites]
He's a fictional character and that's what his writers decided would happen!
Obviously sheriff doesn't know about Francis Urquhart.
posted by clavdivs at 11:29 AM on June 2, 2022 [3 favorites]
Obviously sheriff doesn't know about Francis Urquhart.
posted by clavdivs at 11:29 AM on June 2, 2022 [3 favorites]
The only way to fix it is a massive culture shift
The culture shift is to eliminate sheriff's departments. They are a relic from a bygone era, like slave patrols and constables. Use state police for should-be-ghost-towns and rural areas.
posted by rhizome at 11:44 AM on June 2, 2022 [23 favorites]
The culture shift is to eliminate sheriff's departments. They are a relic from a bygone era, like slave patrols and constables. Use state police for should-be-ghost-towns and rural areas.
posted by rhizome at 11:44 AM on June 2, 2022 [23 favorites]
If you fired all these gang members, a substantial fraction would have to commit even more crimes to support themselves and their families, and each gang would comprise a ready made organized crime family made up of fellow fired gang members, to boot.
Crime in LA County would shoot up tremendously virtually overnight. And your remaining deputies would have very little inclination to stop it, and probably wouldn’t be able to if they did.
There is no easy way out of this mess.
posted by jamjam at 11:45 AM on June 2, 2022 [7 favorites]
Crime in LA County would shoot up tremendously virtually overnight. And your remaining deputies would have very little inclination to stop it, and probably wouldn’t be able to if they did.
There is no easy way out of this mess.
posted by jamjam at 11:45 AM on June 2, 2022 [7 favorites]
coördinate
Never change, The New Yorker.
posted by The Tensor at 11:56 AM on June 2, 2022 [25 favorites]
Never change, The New Yorker.
posted by The Tensor at 11:56 AM on June 2, 2022 [25 favorites]
Look on the bright side, the last huge LAPD scandal gave us The Shield. Maybe we'll get another excellent show out of this.
posted by star gentle uterus at 12:05 PM on June 2, 2022 [5 favorites]
posted by star gentle uterus at 12:05 PM on June 2, 2022 [5 favorites]
There is no easy way out of this mess.
posted by jamjam at 11:45 AM on June 2 [2 favorites +] [!]
After the big George Floyd protests I spent a lot of time and energy trying to get my union, which represents some cops, but bigger picture represents a ton of workers who work in close connection with law enforcement (court workers, jail techs, civilian employees of police & sheriffs departments, prison healthcare workers, etc), to take an abolitionist position on prison and police. It was a huge failure (for now). Union siblings in my progressive Northern California region deeply understand the harms police do: we represent mostly working class people of color and so lots of members have directly experienced police violence or are one step removed or directly impacted by the mass incarceration apparatus. On the other hand, changing this system requires a complete overhaul of funding priorities that threatens people's immediate livelihood and replaces it with complete unknowns. It requires a huge imagination and Overton shift of what is possible if we fund rec programs, schools, parks, mental health services, good public sector jobs, etc.. things that we can barely imagine because they are so far from our life experience.
Activating enough people toward a shared goal of overhauling society, knowing that if we are successful in that overhaul, we still have no certainty of the outcome, well, we are extremely far from that right now. In my experience, everyone put up a Black Lives Matter sign. Very few felt ready for material action. AT this point I think those symbolic gestures do harm because they gloss over the material change that will actually reduce harms.
posted by latkes at 12:08 PM on June 2, 2022 [28 favorites]
posted by jamjam at 11:45 AM on June 2 [2 favorites +] [!]
After the big George Floyd protests I spent a lot of time and energy trying to get my union, which represents some cops, but bigger picture represents a ton of workers who work in close connection with law enforcement (court workers, jail techs, civilian employees of police & sheriffs departments, prison healthcare workers, etc), to take an abolitionist position on prison and police. It was a huge failure (for now). Union siblings in my progressive Northern California region deeply understand the harms police do: we represent mostly working class people of color and so lots of members have directly experienced police violence or are one step removed or directly impacted by the mass incarceration apparatus. On the other hand, changing this system requires a complete overhaul of funding priorities that threatens people's immediate livelihood and replaces it with complete unknowns. It requires a huge imagination and Overton shift of what is possible if we fund rec programs, schools, parks, mental health services, good public sector jobs, etc.. things that we can barely imagine because they are so far from our life experience.
Activating enough people toward a shared goal of overhauling society, knowing that if we are successful in that overhaul, we still have no certainty of the outcome, well, we are extremely far from that right now. In my experience, everyone put up a Black Lives Matter sign. Very few felt ready for material action. AT this point I think those symbolic gestures do harm because they gloss over the material change that will actually reduce harms.
posted by latkes at 12:08 PM on June 2, 2022 [28 favorites]
latkes: "In my experience, everyone put up a Black Lives Matter sign. Very few felt ready for material action. AT this point I think those symbolic gestures do harm because they gloss over the material change that will actually reduce harms."
Honestly, this is a huge component of why I have never put one of the signs up. It's far too easy to post it on the lawn then step back saying "welp I did my part"
posted by caution live frogs at 12:12 PM on June 2, 2022 [5 favorites]
Honestly, this is a huge component of why I have never put one of the signs up. It's far too easy to post it on the lawn then step back saying "welp I did my part"
posted by caution live frogs at 12:12 PM on June 2, 2022 [5 favorites]
----------------------
| Elect Joe Leaphorn |
| For L.A. Sheriff |
| 2022 |
----------------------
l
l
l
posted by NoThisIsPatrick at 12:35 PM on June 2, 2022 [3 favorites]
This isn't at all important, but taking your inspiration from a TV character whose writers made sure he came out on top is brain-meltingly stupid.
Well, there is precedent:
As Chief Justice John Roberts puts it: the only good way to learn about writing is to read good writing. And it turns out that many of the justices take their inspiration from great literature. Justice Stephen Breyer likes Proust, Stendahl, and Montesquieu. Justice Anthony Kennedy loves Hemingway, Shakespeare, Solzenitsn, Dickens, and Trollpe. Justice Clarence Thomas says a good legal brief reminds him of the TV show "24"…
posted by TedW at 12:45 PM on June 2, 2022 [8 favorites]
Well, there is precedent:
As Chief Justice John Roberts puts it: the only good way to learn about writing is to read good writing. And it turns out that many of the justices take their inspiration from great literature. Justice Stephen Breyer likes Proust, Stendahl, and Montesquieu. Justice Anthony Kennedy loves Hemingway, Shakespeare, Solzenitsn, Dickens, and Trollpe. Justice Clarence Thomas says a good legal brief reminds him of the TV show "24"…
posted by TedW at 12:45 PM on June 2, 2022 [8 favorites]
The culture shift is to eliminate sheriff's departments. They are a relic from a bygone era, like slave patrols and constables. Use state police for should-be-ghost-towns and rural areas.
LA County is neither ghost town (10m people live here) nor rural (unless you count the high desert exurbs*). The sheriffs patrol unincorporated LA County but also like 40 cities who don't have their own municipal policing. Our state police (California Highway Patrol) is neither funded nor equipped to take this on, with an operating budget and employees running about 2/3rds the LACSD, for the entire state.
(*FWIW, there's an argument to be made that LACounty is too big, a lumbering monstrosity that's impossible to govern effectively, and they're not wrong.)
posted by ApathyGirl at 12:49 PM on June 2, 2022 [11 favorites]
LA County is neither ghost town (10m people live here) nor rural (unless you count the high desert exurbs*). The sheriffs patrol unincorporated LA County but also like 40 cities who don't have their own municipal policing. Our state police (California Highway Patrol) is neither funded nor equipped to take this on, with an operating budget and employees running about 2/3rds the LACSD, for the entire state.
(*FWIW, there's an argument to be made that LACounty is too big, a lumbering monstrosity that's impossible to govern effectively, and they're not wrong.)
posted by ApathyGirl at 12:49 PM on June 2, 2022 [11 favorites]
If you fired all these gang members, a substantial fraction would have to commit even more crimes to support themselves and their families,
“If we fire these abusive murdering sheriffs they may turn to theft to pay the bills so we shouldn’t fire them” is certainly a take. I agree there’s no simple solutions, but this bit of forecasting is very odd to me.
posted by wemayfreeze at 12:49 PM on June 2, 2022 [25 favorites]
“If we fire these abusive murdering sheriffs they may turn to theft to pay the bills so we shouldn’t fire them” is certainly a take. I agree there’s no simple solutions, but this bit of forecasting is very odd to me.
posted by wemayfreeze at 12:49 PM on June 2, 2022 [25 favorites]
California is a death penalty state that loves its prisons more than most parents love their children. We shouldn't be talking about firing them so much as life sentences or worse for them, since they're so fond of sending people to jail.
posted by Pope Guilty at 1:06 PM on June 2, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by Pope Guilty at 1:06 PM on June 2, 2022 [3 favorites]
Sentencing them to jail would be a way to appease the prison guard unions, which definitely have an outsized impact on California, and were one of the strongest forces fighting cannabis legalization.
posted by straw at 1:08 PM on June 2, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by straw at 1:08 PM on June 2, 2022 [2 favorites]
LA County is neither ghost town
Whoops, my mistake! I should have defined a should-be-ghost-town as places too small and far to support having a municipal police department.
posted by rhizome at 1:37 PM on June 2, 2022 [1 favorite]
Whoops, my mistake! I should have defined a should-be-ghost-town as places too small and far to support having a municipal police department.
posted by rhizome at 1:37 PM on June 2, 2022 [1 favorite]
Reads like a story about outlaw motorcycle gangs. Same rule through threats and intimidation and violence, same terminology ("prospect," "chasing ink"), same misogyny, practically the same names--cf. the Bandidos, and there was a gang in the 70s-80s (I think) called the Grim Reapers.
posted by scratch at 1:43 PM on June 2, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by scratch at 1:43 PM on June 2, 2022 [3 favorites]
It was a very well written, informative article, but, since we have already remarked on style: 'insinuatingly'?
posted by not_that_epiphanius at 2:21 PM on June 2, 2022
posted by not_that_epiphanius at 2:21 PM on June 2, 2022
Police in America hold an absolutely huge amount of political power. Any solution that starts from the fiction that they’re public servants whose ultimate boss is The People will never work.
posted by Jon_Evil at 2:38 PM on June 2, 2022 [5 favorites]
posted by Jon_Evil at 2:38 PM on June 2, 2022 [5 favorites]
The solution to the problem of needing a sheriff's department due to "Los Angeles" technicallyl including 40ish parasite "cities" that pay low taxes and benefit from the economy of LA proper is not to use county policing but to disolve all those little parasite "cities" and incorporate them into LA so their taxes can support the services and benefits they've been getting without paying for. THen the LAPD (god help us) can be expanded to cover the entire LA metro area.
The next, obvious, step is to pass an amendment to the state constitution putting all sheriff departments under direct control of the state with power to discipline, fire, and imprison, corrupt sheriffs and deputies.
Having over 6,000 little fiefdoms run by Boss Hogg wannabes is a mockery of the concept of justice. Right now the local sheriff is accountable to absolutely no one but the local voters. That has to chagne.
posted by sotonohito at 2:44 PM on June 2, 2022 [19 favorites]
The next, obvious, step is to pass an amendment to the state constitution putting all sheriff departments under direct control of the state with power to discipline, fire, and imprison, corrupt sheriffs and deputies.
Having over 6,000 little fiefdoms run by Boss Hogg wannabes is a mockery of the concept of justice. Right now the local sheriff is accountable to absolutely no one but the local voters. That has to chagne.
posted by sotonohito at 2:44 PM on June 2, 2022 [19 favorites]
I watch a lot of body worn camera footage and without the uniforms, I wouldn't be able to tell the criminals from the police.
posted by Thrakburzug at 4:35 PM on June 2, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by Thrakburzug at 4:35 PM on June 2, 2022 [4 favorites]
And the lights of L.A. County
Are a mighty pretty sight
When you're kneeling at the altar
With an old friend at your side
posted by kirkaracha at 4:52 PM on June 2, 2022 [2 favorites]
Are a mighty pretty sight
When you're kneeling at the altar
With an old friend at your side
posted by kirkaracha at 4:52 PM on June 2, 2022 [2 favorites]
This column from the Gustavo Arellano of the Los Angeles Times about Villanueva’s campaign manager is fascinating and kind of scary.
Also, hilarious that Designated Survivor is the other show they watched for inspiration.
(And LASD is not LAPD, which can even confuse the sheriff’s campaign.)
posted by jimw at 7:31 PM on June 2, 2022 [2 favorites]
Also, hilarious that Designated Survivor is the other show they watched for inspiration.
(And LASD is not LAPD, which can even confuse the sheriff’s campaign.)
posted by jimw at 7:31 PM on June 2, 2022 [2 favorites]
> It was a very well written, informative article, but, since we have already remarked on style: 'insinuatingly'?
It's a perfectly crimeulent word.
posted by 7segment at 7:39 PM on June 2, 2022 [6 favorites]
It's a perfectly crimeulent word.
posted by 7segment at 7:39 PM on June 2, 2022 [6 favorites]
California is a death penalty state that loves its prisons more than most parents love their children.
utter nonsense. we havent executed anyone for many years (there is a de facto moratorium) and have been radically decriminalizing for a long time. pc 1170.95 is a petition process to release murderers and attempted murderers unlike anything that exists in any other state. prop 36 and prop 47 radically reformed three strikes law and the law of nonviolent felonies. you dont have ANY clue what you're talking about.
posted by wibari at 7:45 PM on June 2, 2022 [4 favorites]
utter nonsense. we havent executed anyone for many years (there is a de facto moratorium) and have been radically decriminalizing for a long time. pc 1170.95 is a petition process to release murderers and attempted murderers unlike anything that exists in any other state. prop 36 and prop 47 radically reformed three strikes law and the law of nonviolent felonies. you dont have ANY clue what you're talking about.
posted by wibari at 7:45 PM on June 2, 2022 [4 favorites]
the lasd are full of goons. the way they manage the county jails is very gang-like. extremely aggressive and terrifying, to the point that they got in hot water with the feds for threatening an fbi agent who was investigating them. terrible. they make the lapd look downright progressive by comparison. elected sheriffs should be abolished and the state should pay municipalities what it takes to hire a local pd if they cant afford to. ultimately all authority devolves from the state.
posted by wibari at 7:58 PM on June 2, 2022 [5 favorites]
posted by wibari at 7:58 PM on June 2, 2022 [5 favorites]
state should pay municipalities what it takes to hire a local pd if they cant afford to.
Which is abolishing sherriffs and using state police. It would be an expansion of state police, but it would eliminate an entire category of jurisdiction that overlaps with everybody else's for (I think) no good reason, and at any rate seems to be a source of many unnecessary problems.
posted by rhizome at 8:28 PM on June 2, 2022 [1 favorite]
Which is abolishing sherriffs and using state police. It would be an expansion of state police, but it would eliminate an entire category of jurisdiction that overlaps with everybody else's for (I think) no good reason, and at any rate seems to be a source of many unnecessary problems.
posted by rhizome at 8:28 PM on June 2, 2022 [1 favorite]
Fractured municipalities having their own PD is also terrible, and one solution here has been to dissolve them and have the county take over. There is no uniformly well-functioning unit of government. One of the benefits of overlapping jurisdictions is that we shouldn't feel bad about dissolving a hopeless unit, or in the case of state police devolving its power.
posted by a robot made out of meat at 12:36 PM on June 3, 2022
posted by a robot made out of meat at 12:36 PM on June 3, 2022
The Red Devils started in the nineteen-seventies, when East L.A. deputies, most of them white men, called the station Fort Apache, after the John Wayne movie about a mostly white cavalry unit at war with Native Americans.
I'm thinking of a 1981 film which namechecks that one, Fort Apache, The Bronx.
posted by doctornemo at 9:11 AM on June 4, 2022 [1 favorite]
I'm thinking of a 1981 film which namechecks that one, Fort Apache, The Bronx.
posted by doctornemo at 9:11 AM on June 4, 2022 [1 favorite]
Also, from Wikipedia:
In 1976, Tom Walker, a police officer who had been stationed at the 41st precinct, published Fort Apache (New York: Crowell, 1976. ISBN 0-690-01047-8), a non-fiction book about his experiences there. After the release of the film, Walker filed a lawsuit against its producers and writers alleging copyright infringement. Among other things, Walker argued that: "both the book and the film begin with the murder of a black and a white policeman with a handgun at close range; both depict cockfights, drunks, stripped cars, prostitutes and rats; both feature as central characters third- or fourth-generation Irish policemen who live in Queens and frequently drink; both show disgruntled, demoralized police officers and unsuccessful foot chases of fleeing criminals".
Walker lost in federal district court, and again on appeal.[14][15] The appeals court ruled that these are stereotypical ideas, so called "scènes à faire" (French for "scenes that must be done"), and that copyright law does not protect concepts or ideas.
posted by doctornemo at 9:15 AM on June 4, 2022
In 1976, Tom Walker, a police officer who had been stationed at the 41st precinct, published Fort Apache (New York: Crowell, 1976. ISBN 0-690-01047-8), a non-fiction book about his experiences there. After the release of the film, Walker filed a lawsuit against its producers and writers alleging copyright infringement. Among other things, Walker argued that: "both the book and the film begin with the murder of a black and a white policeman with a handgun at close range; both depict cockfights, drunks, stripped cars, prostitutes and rats; both feature as central characters third- or fourth-generation Irish policemen who live in Queens and frequently drink; both show disgruntled, demoralized police officers and unsuccessful foot chases of fleeing criminals".
Walker lost in federal district court, and again on appeal.[14][15] The appeals court ruled that these are stereotypical ideas, so called "scènes à faire" (French for "scenes that must be done"), and that copyright law does not protect concepts or ideas.
posted by doctornemo at 9:15 AM on June 4, 2022
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Policing in the US is so fucked.
posted by Thorzdad at 10:54 AM on June 2, 2022 [13 favorites]