By Leila Katibah
LOS ANGELES, CA – Following decades of organizing by civil rights groups and families of victims of sheriffs’ deputy violence, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors last week voted 4-1 to put a measure on the November ballot that, if approved, would amend the county charter and grant the board the power to remove a sheriff for serious violations of public trust and safety.
Corruption and violence have tainted the legacy of the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department, with multiple news reports and studies confirming the existence of “deputy gangs” encouraging brutality and harassment in the department, jails, and patrolled neighborhoods.
Whistleblowers have identified one deputy gang as “the Banditos,” who function as a shadow government within local law enforcement, particularly in East Los Angeles. Other deputy gangs such as the Grim Reapers, the Regulators, and the Vikings have plagued the sheriff’s department for 50 years.
According to a lawsuit filed by eight East LA deputies and the ACLU, the Banditos gang “controls the East Los Angeles station like inmates running a prison yard.” Leaders are named “shot-callers” who determine deputies’ hours, promotions, and days off, according to the suit.
The mark of a Bandito is a secret numbered tattoo on the leg or ankle, of a skeleton with a thick mustache, a bandolier, a sombrero, while brandishing a smoking gun, said the ACLU, noting victims’ families allege deputies killed their family members in hopes of...
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