POLICE GANGS - LAPD

POLICE GANGS - LAPD

For decades, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department has struggled to combat secretive cliques of deputies who bonded over aggressive, often violent police work and branded themselves with matching tattoos. -latimes.com July, 2018 ‘The Lynwood Vikings’ - Compton County ere a white supremacist gang in Los Angeles, based at the Lynwood station of the L.A. County Sheriff's Department, whose members were deputy sheriffs in the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department (LASD). Its members have included Paul Tanaka, deputy Sheriff and LASD second-in-command to Lee Baca. After lawsuits repeatedly surfaced concerning the group's activities, the Vikings were described by federal judge Terry Hatter as a "neo-Nazi" gang engaged in racially motivated hostility. According to sociologist Rob Sullivan, its members were committed to the "valorization" of Aryans. Both LA Sheriff Paul Tanaka, and LA Deputy Sheriff Lee Baca, are now in federal prison -wikipedia 'Jump Out Boys' - L.A. County "The 'Jump Out Boys' are usually either the swat team, or the cops on stake outs inside the sound van, listening in on wiretaps or wired informants. When tipped off, or alerted, these officers are known to jump out of the vehicle and subdue suspects by force... . Some gangs and/or squads are known to call themselves 'Jump Out Boys' due to their similar, jump out style." Viking tattoos is the symbol "998," which stands for "officer-involved shooting," Based on this information, it would appear the Vikings are investigating the Jump Out Boys. - laweekly.com March, 2012 ‘The Regulators’ - Los Angeles They wear tattoos of a skull-faced man holding a shotgun, fire screaming from its barrels. They refuse to testify against their buddies. They've been accused of extorting and intimidating those outside their ranks. No, they're not members of a street gang. They're Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies at the Century station. And their "club" is part of a culture that's dogged the nation's largest sheriff's department for years. The Regulators are the focus of litigation alleging racism in the department and involving accusations that a group of deputies is behaving like a gang. brutalized minorities, falsely arrested suspects and engaged in wrongful shootings. -laag.us September, 2007 ‘The Grim Reapers’ - Lennox Station, Los Angeles County Death's hooded skull and scythe tattooed onto the inside of a deputy's left ankle in 1989 initiated him into a select fraternity called the Grim Reapers. Membership swelled in the 1980s at overwhelmingly white sheriff's stations that were islands in black and Latino immigrant communities. "They are generally perceived as rogue cops who have often been accused of acting in very inappropriate ways in the street," said Joe Hicks, executive director of the city's human relations commission. "It doesn't seem to be good for morale or community relations." -LAPD Deputy Group members are said to be predominantly white and male, though Latino members are reportedly common. There are few black or female initiates, group members say. -worldfreeinternet.us March, 1999 ‘The 3000 Boys’ - L.A. County Jail It has also incensed civil rights leaders, six years after a county report co authored by McDonnell (then police chief in the port city of Long Beach) which described how deputies belonging to secret cliques would dare each other to beat or kill jail inmates and let them add details to their tattoos every time they did. Deputies would sometimes get into fights with rival clique members – including a notorious dust-up at a department Christmas party in 2010 that led to six deputy firings – or beat up honest deputies who refused to accept the dare. Between 10 and 20 deputies at the Compton station had the same tattoo on their legs. -John Sweeney, civil rights lawyer, L.A. County, On June 27, 2016, L.A. County Under-sheriff Paul K. Tanaka was sentenced to five years in prison, for civil rights abuses inside the nation's largest urban jail system. On May 12, 2017, L.A. County Sheriff Leroy David Baca was sentenced to three years in federal prison for his role in a scheme to obstruct an FBI investigation of abuses in county jails. -theguardian.com  Aug, 2018 ‘The Rattlesnakes’ - L.A. County PD We know this to be true: Police and sheriff’s departments are state-sponsored gangs with licenses to kill. They exist to protect white property, criminalize Black and other non-white people, and to occupy economically exploited communities. Black cops, too. Deputies engaged in racially motivated hostility. The county paid $9 million in fines and training costs to settle the lawsuits in 1996. White supremacist state violence—and power—is institutionalized and systemic, and anyone of any race, ethnicity, creed, gender, or religion can act in service to its mission. - Federal judge hearing class-action litigation against the department -essence.com Nov, 2018 Over the last 30 years many gangs or cliques within the LAPD and Sheriff's department have been uncovered- groups with names like the Lynwood Vikings and the 3000 Boys. They sport tattoos and throw hand signs just like the "criminals" they arrest. -AL Profit