Deputy gangs a 'cancer' within the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, scathing report says
Deputy gangs a 'cancer' within the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, scathing report says
The 70-page report by the Civilian Oversight Commissions special counsel accused the department of harboring secretive groups that must be immediately "excised."
The embattled Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department is under fire once again, this time in a scathing 70-page report by a special counsel tasked with investigating secretive groups, or deputy gangs, that have operated within the agency for decades.
The report by the Civilian Oversight Commission condemned the groups, whose members engage in egregious conduct like using excessive force and threatening colleagues, as a cancer that must be banned immediately. It also accused the union that represents the sheriff's deputies of failing to stop the gangs and protecting alleged members.
The report said that although the groups may have started decades ago with "benign intentions," they have evolved into deputy gangs "whose members not only use gang-like symbols but engage in gang-type and criminal behavior directed against the public and other Department members," the report stated.