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Gang members hold positions at ‘highest levels’ of LA Sheriff’s department
- showdeddd 4y ago[flagged]
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- aaomidi 4y agoDo they? What oversight exactly? They can get away with literal murder thanks to qualified immunity.
- 47476573 4y ago[flagged]
- SketchySeaBeast 4y ago> It describes one “chasing ink” episode in which deputies transporting a shooting victim to the hospital allegedly took an “off-route” detour and instead “assaulted the victim.” Other deputies “chasing ink,” the investigation states, have actively tried to “get into shootings.” It elaborates: “These deputies would follow a suspect believed to have a gun so that a shooting would be justified.” If these feel justified and cops doing their jobs I don't know what to tell you.
- 47476573 4y ago[flagged]
- kentm 4y agoYou really think it’s ok for police to beat up people in their custody who are not an immediate threat?
- 47476573 4y ago[flagged]
- SketchySeaBeast 4y agoYou had me at first but I now see you're just trolling.
- zoklet-enjoyer 4y agoYou wish cops would beat up your neighbors? That's awful
- ffggffggj 4y agoPersonally I’ve never been a “trade civil liberties for feelings of security” type myself but if that’s what works for you…
- 47476573 4y ago[flagged]
- ffggffggj 4y agoHey if that’s what helps you sleep then that’s what helps you sleep. I’m just saying it’s against my principles.
- 47476573 4y ago[flagged]
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- JumpCrisscross 4y ago> beating up criminals in my neighborhood isn't a "feeling" of security it's actual security You’re describing police beating up suspects. Few people have a problem with police beating up criminals, our prisons being Exhibit A. Police beating up suspects leaves all of us less safe, because now anyone who looks like a criminal has an incentive to not cooperate with law enforcement, and be prepared for violent encounters with the state, which means more accidental violence with non-state persons.
- oblio 4y agoYou do know that cops are only supposed to arrest people, right? There's no "beating up" as part of the official justice system, even in the US.
- dvngnt_ 4y ago> I'd prefer police gangs be empowered rather than criminal gangs. They at least have to conform to some oversight. aren't they the same group of people?
- malfist 4y agoHow about neither?
- mabbo 4y agoPolice gangs are criminal gangs. The very nature of the report is that these people are committing crimes and getting away with it via their position as police officers. It's corruption of the worst kind.
- wonderwonder 4y agoThat's the thing, they actually have less oversight. Criminal civilian gangs are harassed by police. The police have almost unlimited power, who provides oversight? If police leadership is involved, not them. On top of that police have qualified immunity. So they kill someone, and throw a gun on them. Everyone in the police department knows and is in on it. They investigate themselves and find no wrong doing. If a criminal beats you to death, the police investigate. Who investigates when the police do it and the entire department is corrupt?
- sokoloff 4y agoI think that I am personally much less likely to run afoul of a police gang than a criminal gang. That's a practical, but not an ethical, reason for me to prefer police gangs over criminal gangs.
- ashwagary 4y ago>I think that I am personally much less likely to run afoul of a police gang than a criminal gang. The police gang has qualified immunity if they harm or murder you. So what's your reasoning?
- sokoloff 4y agoThere is almost no likelihood that the police are interested in screwing with me. It's a pure percentages argument, not an ethical one. I'm old, boring, and the most tense police interaction I'm likely to have is for a minor traffic ticket or expired parking meter.
- ceejayoz 4y agoThere's an extensive investigation of this at https://knock-la.com/tradition-of-violence-lasd-gang-history/ https://knock-la.com/tradition-of-violence-lasd-gang-history.... There's even https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_LASD_deputy_gangs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_LASD_deputy_gangs. This has been clear for quite some time. I suspect the LASD will very successfully resist reform efforts.
- cs702 4y agoThe whole thing reads like a far-fetched plot for a completely unrealistic action movie, but it's all too real: > The report identifies at “least a half dozen” active gangs and cliques — and names them: the Executioners, the Banditos, the Regulators, the Spartans, the Gladiators, the Cowboys, and the Reapers. Gangs proudly calling themselves "the Executioners" or "the Gladiators" likely have antisocial and violent tendencies. Think for a moment about the kind of person such names will attract. After reading about the horrifying things these gangs do, I'm left speechless. Reality truly can be stranger -- and more shocking -- than fiction.
- SketchySeaBeast 4y agoJust once can we please have a self-effacing police gang? I want the "Smooth Criminals" or something. Stop trying to be the most badass and have some fun with it!
- mattkrause 4y agoAt least for me, “The Regulators” sounds like a bunch of guys in dark suits with stacks of records and regulations. “Pursuant to 17 USC § 501, we’re going to break your kneecaps” The coolest possible use of a regulator is maybe scuba diving?
- p0pcult 4y agoIs anyone actually surprised by this? When you have qualified immunity, you use it. Absolute protection corrupts absolutely. Edit (to the downvoters): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unarmed_African_Americans_killed_by_law_enforcement_officers_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unarmed_African_Americ...
- theloco 4y agolots of people from orange county (grew up there) knew about this like 20 years ago.
- theloco 4y agoalso i have to add that this isnt just LA, its definitely also san diego and orange county. just think of the money
- dylan604 4y agowhy are you limiting this to california cities? yes, you're right, it's not just LA, but pretty much any policing agency of significant size. location doesn't matter. i will gladly accept i'm painting with an overly large brush if someone can show counter evidence of a decent sized police force where similar is NOT occurring.
- p0pcult 4y agoWhile i completely agree with you, we should remember that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
- l_theanine 4y ago[flagged]
- p0pcult 4y agoIn this thread: majority of commenters pointing out this was well known. And one crank.
- l_theanine 4y ago[flagged]
- fortran77 4y ago[flagged]
- p0pcult 4y agoIf you don't give entities the chance for rehabilitation, there is no will to change their behavior.
- JeremyBanks 4y agoThere’s a reason that songs like “fuck the police” came out of the LA area. Decades later, and it’s only worse. This is where the “abolition” language comes from. How do you fix this? Unclear. Wholesale replacement seems tempting in the face of any direct path to reform. LA police organizations are rotten from fruit to root. Incrementalism won’t work.
- timcavel 4y ago[dead]
- frogpelt 4y agoI know we have to hold law enforcement to very high standards but maybe the problem is that we are asking them to do an impossible task. How do you convince a group of highly ethical, moral people to police communities with no ethics or morals? Communities have to police themselves first.
- positron6000 4y agothis isn't some elevated response to criminal activity. it's police themselves acting criminally against the entire population.
- frogpelt 4y agoCame back five days later to say this: I understand that the problem is these cops being criminals. That's unacceptable. Full stop. My larger point was that apparently people without morals or ethics are being attracted to the police force for some reason. And that could be because there's no way to attract moral/ethical people to do that job.
- n0us 4y agoImportant to remember Rolling Stone has a history of publishing false or exaggerated stories.
- pyrophane 4y agoDo you have more information about that?
- hn_throwaway_99 4y ago"A Rape on Campus" was a widely reported one and a huge scandal: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Rape_on_Campus https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Rape_on_Campus
- HideousKojima 4y agoThe UVA rape story was blatantly obviously false to any male who read it (no man is going to intentionally put his junk near a bed of broken glass, frat-bro gang rapist or no) but this particular article is simply about the details of a report created by the LA County Civilian Oversight Commission, so I'm not sure what attacks on Rolling Stone's (admittedly poor) credibility have to do with that. The actual report is found here (and linked to by the Rolling Stone article): https://www.scribd.com/document/629758526/ladeptygang https://www.scribd.com/document/629758526/ladeptygang
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago> this particular article is simply about the details of a report created by the LA County Civilian Oversight Commission, so I'm not sure what attacks on Rolling Stone's (admittedly poor) credibility have to do with that This article dances around these “gangs” being deputy cliques with allegedly violent tendencies, not actual infiltration by LA street gangs. That smudging makes the lack of evidence for those violent tendencies or refusal to provide back-up easier to digest.
- sidlls 4y ago
- zabzonk 4y agowhere is dirty harry when you need him? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnum_Force https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnum_Force
- SketchySeaBeast 4y agoThe problem is a lot of these guys probably think they are Dirty Harry or the Punisher or some other vigilante they idolize.
- dmix 4y ago> The recent-former Sheriff Alex Villanueva won office in 2018 after campaigning as a reformer. But if Villanueva paid lip service to ending LASD’s gang culture, his hiring practices told a much different story. “Sheriff Villanueva promoted Timothy Murakami, a tattooed Caveman, to Undersheriff and Lawrence Del Mese, a tattooed Grim Reaper, to Chief of Staff,” the investigation reports. (The report states that both Villanueva and Murakami refused to participate in the investigation, while Del Mese testified he’d had his tattoos removed when joining the Villanueva regime, because they were a “liability” and “a bad look.”) Listening to the LA sheriff debate was interesting: https://youtu.be/C0BHOA1mMco https://youtu.be/C0BHOA1mMco They both have connections to gangs? And one is denying they exist. It makes you wonder if hiring for these top positions would be nearly impossible if you had to exclude gang-connected (directly or indirectly) because almost all of the seniority probably had some connection to it in order to get where they are. Some organizations are so deeply rotted it's nearly impossible to do an internal clean up without getting rid of the bulk of the staff. And I'm sure the difficulty of hiring new police officers since 2020 is a big excuse for keeping them, because who is going to replace them? You almost have to a) choose the less bad ones or b) spend a lot of time/money to import senior police from other states or counties.
- carlosjobim 4y agoThe solution is to bring in huge amounts of military police from other parts of the state or country, and arm the citizens. Street gangs and police gangs are analogous to having armed battalions of enemy soldiers in your city, that calls for a military response.
- vorpalhex 4y ago1. If you think gangs in police are bad, wait until you find out about gangs in the military 2. You probably almost certainly do not want martial law. 3. The military is not an intelligence organization.
- carlosjobim 4y agoYou can have military police without martial law. You can split investigative units from the enforcing/order keeping battalions, the military does not need to be involved in investigative work. Most lawyers could be suited for investigative police work. Gangs would have a hard time forming in battalions mixed by people from all over the country.
- 1-6 4y agoThis article has a sensational title and lacks on actual numbers. The number "least a half dozen" seems very approximate. What about the incidence of ex-gang members? Out of how many LA Sheriffs are we referring to?
- starkparker 4y agoDifficult to count, in part because Villanueva or his leadership allegedly discouraged investigations into them: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/06/06/the-la-county-sheriffs-deputy-gang-crisis https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/06/06/the-la-county-... > Last week, at a public hearing, the Civilian Oversight Commission presented new evidence to suggest that the investigators’ diminishing focus on the Banditos was directed from above. (Villanueva denies giving any orders that discouraged investigation.) Throughout the inquiry, the lead investigator kept a detailed log of his work. While votes in the election for sheriff were still being counted, in early November, he wrote that he was told to ask witnesses “additional questions about subcultures at East LA.” In a deposition for the case of the eight deputies, parts of which were read into evidence at the hearing, the investigator said that, after Villanueva’s victory, his supervisor had mentioned needing to “check with the sheriff” about the Banditos inquiry. Ten days later, the investigator noted a new instruction from his supervisor: “I do not need to ask about subculture groups at ELA Station.” He explained in his deposition, “We’re a paramilitary organization. He gives me an order; I follow through.” The financial cost is more well known: > Since 1990, according to the Office of the Inspector General, settlements involving deputies with gang affiliations have cost taxpayers at least $54 million. That New Yorker story also describes several ex-deputies with gang connections, including the Paul Tanaka trial (Vikings) and Villaneuva reinstating "Creepy" Carl Mandoyan (Grim Reapers).
- kevviiinn 4y agoHere is a convenient database for your reading. There are also numerous reports on this website of the details of past LASD gang activity https://lasdgangs.knock-la.com/ https://lasdgangs.knock-la.com/
- kneebonian 4y agoIn addition to this it is well known that the cartels are actively involved in politics in many states along the southern border. Imagine how the cartels would then want to influence politics. It has always struck my as incredibly naive that we in America believe that organized crime just can't be running and involved in the government because that would be a "conspiracy" when they are so actively involved in so many other countries governments.
- starkd 4y agoPlus foreign entities - like China - actively buying influence. It is literaly a free-for-all.
- dfxm12 4y agoInteresting language in this article. They're trying their hardest to make it seem like members of LA street gangs are running the LAPD, but, really, it's just cops being cops. This type of stuff happens even in PD's where there are no deputy gangs to join: Deputies eager to join a gang are notorious for “chasing ink” — or engaging in violence toward county residents... This has led to a rash of “excessive force or other forms of unconstitutional policing,” the report says. I'm more worried about white supremacists gang members in law enforcement: https://whyy.org/articles/oath-keeperes-membership-data-police-elected-officials/ https://whyy.org/articles/oath-keeperes-membership-data-poli...
- aceazzameen 4y agoThis is my worry too.
- xbar 4y agoEveryone gets to have their own favorite fear of law enforcement, but corruption in law enforcement is bad--everywhere. Cops killing cops and their families in gang initiations and power struggles makes for nice FX shows, but it is bad for communities, no matter what race the cops are.
- ajmurmann 4y agoIMO, it's among the worst forms of crime and should be punished accordingly. The damage goes far beyond the immediate action, since it undermines the public's trust in the system as a whole. It should be punished accordingly.
- carlosjobim 4y ago> I'm more worried about white supremacists gang Why? Does it feel nicer to be beaten or murdered by cop depending on their political affiliation?
- ddevault 4y ago[flagged]
- YeahNO 4y ago[flagged]
- gazpachotron 4y ago[dead]
- xbar 4y agoI have not seen any links. They are rooted in Chicano communities, so I doubt it.
- ashwagary 4y agoHispanic white supremacist groups are nothing new.
- YeahNO 4y agoThanks, though there are Mexican militias in the US. The Brown Berets (Los Boinas Café) were not a gang, they were a militia. On another note, if anyone could provide any hints as to why my comment made in good faith with an actual link to a reputable site that backs up a well-known phenomenon affecting police nationally was flagged, that'd be great. It's difficult to judge the group-think of ycombinator comment moderators.
- empathy_m 4y agoWhat is this phenomenon -- is it the "bystander effect" or something else? Pretty much everyone knows that the LA Sheriff's Department has been heavily infiltrated by gangs like the Compton Executioners. The phenomenon is extensively well-documented in the press and it even has a Wikipedia entry. But … no one cares? The federal government's Department of Justice just ignores it? ( https://raskin.house.gov/2022/2/chairman-raskin-rep-gomez-urge-doj-to-investigate-deputy-gangs-within-the-la-county-sheriff-s-department https://raskin.house.gov/2022/2/chairman-raskin-rep-gomez-ur... ) At the state and county level, people just kind of ignore it? And individuals can't do much about it, since after all the state has a monopoly on violence? I mentioned the deputy gangs to a family member a while back and they were baffled that nobody is doing anything about it. But who would? What is the word for "assuming someone else is going to do something about that, but there is no one"?
- gonzo41 4y agoThe federal state has a bigger monopoly on violence. You think the FBI would step in?
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago> everyone knows that the LA Sheriff's Department has been heavily infiltrated by gangs like the Compton Executioners Would note that this isn’t infiltration by street gangs as much as deputies forming gangs. > state and county level, people just kind of ignore it I am from the Bay Area. This is the first I’m hearing about it. I do wish we had a more neutral source than the Rolling Stone.
- macNchz 4y ago> I do wish we had a more neutral source than the Rolling Stone. The wikipedia article on this cites several reputable looking sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_LASD_deputy_gangs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_LASD_deputy_gangs
- starkparker 4y agoDefine "neutral" and I can find one, because they've been reported on and named publicly for 50 years. Here's a 50-page summary from Loyola Law School: https://lmu.app.box.com/s/uci2ir4mkpudtvvfp7z8iu4kv1gre1dj https://lmu.app.box.com/s/uci2ir4mkpudtvvfp7z8iu4kv1gre1dj
- starkparker 4y agoAs the story notes, none of these are revelations. They've been around since the 1970s; two of these gangs have Wikipedia pages, and there's a list page compiling reports going back to 1970: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_LASD_deputy_gangs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_LASD_deputy_gangs. The only news is that an official report is directly calling them "gangs". Previous official reports had merely called them "cliques", like this one in 2012 from the LA County's Citizens' Commission on Jail Violence: https://ccjv.lacounty.gov/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/CCJV-Report.pdf https://ccjv.lacounty.gov/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/CCJV-Re... The Executioners are the Compton station and known white supremacists; the county paid out $7M over a fatal shooting tied to the gang in 2019: https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-08-20/lasd-gangs-who-are-the-compton-executioners https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-08-20/lasd-gan..., https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/los-angeles-county-compton-deputy-shooting/149399/ https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/los-angeles-county-compto... The Banditos are the East LA station: https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-fbi-investigating-sheriff-20190711-story.html https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-fbi-investigating-...
- Rebelgecko 4y agoIsn't "clique" just a term for a sub-unit of a gang?
- duxup 4y agoWhile alarming I was also bothered by how short this article was on details. Lots of “widespread” and similar quotes such but no solid numbers. Not much but lots of weighted / non specific language…
- cool_dude85 4y agoInvestigations by the LASD have, for some strange reason, failed to turn up exact counts of membership for these gangs.
- kevviiinn 4y agoWeird huh, I wonder what "blue wall of silence" means?
- jonfw 4y agoYeah, I could easily see one person reading this and thinking that organized crime has infiltrated the police, while another would see this as a hit piece on cop buddies who give each other cutesy nicknames and get the same tattoos
- gazpachotron 4y ago[dead]
- cxr 4y agoMaybe known corrupt locales should be subject to a similar interstate traveling circuit system as the one that judges followed (what the "circuit" in "circuit court" originally referred to—albeit for different reasons). If the issue is police and sheriff's departments having roots in the crime world of LA, then perhaps the appropriate mitigation strategy is for those departments to be wholesale swapped out with ones that were previously operating in, say, Idaho. The idea is that what these regions need are law enforcement, and any PD or sheriff's department educated on local laws should do. All of the reasonable arguments against this that I can anticipate are ones that involve so-called problems that either have trivial solutions, or are actually just a collection of tremendous upsides only dressed up to seem bad. Change my view.
- voakbasda 4y agoWhat citizens would trade their own police force for one known to be corrupt to the core? That’s asking to import violence into their previously peaceful towns. You are basically asking to spread the disease everywhere; this is not a cure.
- codalan 4y agoNobody's safe when the Potato Crew comes to town.
- cxr 4y ago> You are basically asking to spread the disease everywhere Only if you're not paying attention. Corrupt departments getting swapped out for others limits their impact in the affected region. The same principle is at play at the next location. Additionally: corruption thrives (e.g. in the first location) because it has the necessary preconditions to tolerate it; courts and the local folks at the next location are not going to take up a passive posture if the new guys show up and their town is plunged into corruption. Both factors should lead to the corrupt departments being discouraged to the point that they recognize the futility. Alternatively, you could limit it to only swapping out the LA units for the ones that were in Idaho, sending the LA ones nowhere—they're just gone. The problem, after all, is the inability to get rid of all law enforcement headcount in an entire region, even if it is by and large thoroughly corrupt. The Idahoans coming in make that a non-issue.
- Pxtl 4y agoFor non-Americans, what's the difference between a "Sheriff's Department" and a regular "Police Department"?
- vinyl7 4y agoSheriff is county wide, police is city/town
- aweiland 4y agoThe Montgomery County (MD) Police Department would disagree with that statement.
- banannaise 4y agoThe sheriff is typically elected, and the sheriff's department has specific jurisdiction over the area's courts and jails. As part of that, they're usually the ones who serve summonses from the courts, and as such they often play a role in evictions. Depending on the state, they may be limited to almost exclusively those roles, or they might be equivalent to a full police department that also happens to have those roles. In LA, it's closer to the latter.
- Pxtl 4y agoFrom an outsider's perspective, at a glance, LA's case sounds very redundant when they also have an LAPD? I mean, it makes sense having the distinction between the FBI and municipal police forces and state police forces when the state forces primarily police non-municipal areas like expressways and can provide some more mobile backup when there's a local crisis that exceeds a local force's ability to manage. But I don't understand the logic of having so many overlapping police service organizations beyond that.
- banannaise 4y agoOh, you haven't seen anything yet. Richmond, Virginia has a city police department, a sheriff's department, a capitol police department, and a campus police department, and is of course within the jurisdiction of the state police department. Most of the city is within the jurisdiction of at least four of these five. It seems that each entity starts out performing a specific function, but policing is important and we don't want them to just not enforce the law because it's "not their jurisdiction", so we'll just give them more jurisdiction... and the funding to match... and eventually you have 3-5 departments doing basically the same thing in basically the same area. It's terrible. It leads to budget bloat and overpolicing, complicates oversight, and makes it harder for locals to manage police interactions because they're dealing with discordant department policies and ethos. (edit: It may be important to note that the police departments themselves seem to consider all of these things a feature, not a bug.)
- cjbgkagh 4y agoIt’s a problem that’ll get a lot worse as being a police officer was already a shit job that has gotten much worse in recent years. For a gangster the fringe benefit of being a police officer makes a lot of sense. I agree with Bernie Sanders on the point that cops need better pay to go along with higher quality controls. Governments are way too comfortable with gangsters/mobsters, many of whom are regular donors to politicians. These gangsters are famous and everyone know who they are and what they do yet they only rarely get arrested let alone charged with anything. And in the rare cases they do get charged they walk. The way I see it the gangsters are paying govt for the privilege to rob the people unmolested which is another way that govt vicariously robs the people. I consider it a more violent arrangement and that govt has with big companies where big companies rip off people and get away with paying fines.
- blantonl 4y agoThe group of Memphis police officers who were responsible for the murder of Tyre Nichols operated as a gang. I'm just speculating at this point, but naming your specialized unit the "Scorpion Unit" probably also resulted in these guys working as a internal cell, with their own unwritten rules and definitely a propensity to not talk about or work collaboratively with other's outside the unit. Essentially the definition of a gang.
- kevviiinn 4y agoIt's not a problem with naming, that's absurd. There's a systemic problem with policing in the US, why do you think there are protests every few years? Do protests only happen when a named group does something?
- blantonl 4y agoThe naming of your group is a symptom of the overall problem. No one names their gang the "community outreach response unit" which is what these units should be. People name their gangs the "Outlaws" or "Vipers" or "Scorpions" etc because they are intending to send a message of fear or strength. It's Gang 101 activity.
- rg2004 4y agomaybe gang members make great cops, you don't know.
- phkahler 4y agoIt seems like it should be possible to reduce this by changing hiring practices. You want people who are willing to use force to enforce the law, but not people who are eager to do so. Not sure how you screen for that, seems like it's all about ones motivation for wanting the job which may be hard to determine.
- verisimi 4y agoNewsflash: gang members hold positions at the highest levels of government too! They also own all the banks!
- 1659447091 4y agoAbout 20 years ago, I got a fortune cookie with a LA Sheriff's Dept recruitment message during my first tech job in north OC. Co-workers and I were joking about it being a sign to ditch our then low/average paying job to go collect our "mob" money "fortune" Disappointing that this is still a thing (as well as my attitude towards it at the time)
- Rebelgecko 4y agoIt's a great way to get FAANG levels of total compensation without having to subject yourself to the lame technical interview gauntlet
- kevviiinn 4y agoYea, all you have to do is terrorize minority neighborhoods
- rayiner 4y ago> The report insists that the gangs operate “much like the Mafia” and that only “made” members are entitled to the tattoo I’m shocked that people with tattoos are even allowed to serve in the sheriff’s department. It’s like an open invitation to gang members, skinheads, etc. These taboos exist for a reason. Tattoos have always been used to express this sort of group. loyalty and solidarity. Controlling tattoos allows society to control a key signaling mechanism these groups use.
- tptacek 4y agoThat may have been true in 1970, but in 2023 almost a third of US adults have tattoos.
- kasey_junk 4y agoAnd that percentage is higher amongst veterans an explicit hiring pool for law enforcement.
- rayiner 4y agoI don’t see any problem keeping those people from serving in law enforcement. At best they’re indifferent to the unsavory association and that’s part of the problem. Society needs to be able to clearly identify and shun the those elements.
- wglb 4y agoI don't think tattoos are the selector or indicator that certainly I used to think. Way to common these days.
- tptacek 4y agoThere may have been an unsavory association in the 1970s (that, and an association with the US Navy). But today, almost a third of US adults have tattoos; the association now is "part of American culture". Go get a tattoo. They're fun! You can get one of Ronald Coase.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- bastard_op 4y agoThis is probably common in any counties that are hotbeds of crime, this doesn't sound entirely unlike Sheriff Joe Arpaio in Arizona either, where he was just the head racist in charge of Sheriff Deputies' "us and them's" for almost a quarter of a century. That ended with him being voted out finally and pardoned of ongoing lawsuits for years of racial profiling by the supreme racist in charge Donald Trump himself, but wonder who will bail Villaneuva and the cronies out now. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Arpaio https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Arpaio
- JayWaySay 4y ago[flagged]
- dzonga 4y agonot LA but HBO has a nice series about the same thing that happened in Baltimore - "We own this City" . made by the creators of the best show to ever grace TV - The Wire. Police acting unruly. robbing and terrorizing citizens.
- webnrrd2k 4y agoI can't honestly say that I know what to do about this, but there have been various police departments placed on "probation" be the US Justice Department via consent decree. The L.A. Police Department is currently under one [0]. According to my half-assed googling: "Consent decrees are intended to promote police integrity within the Department and prevent conduct that deprives individuals of their rights, privileges, or immunities protected by the Constitution of the United States." Probably the best way to start addressing Sheriff's gangs is to start complaining to the L.A. District Attorney [1], the CA Attorney General [2] and the US Justice Department [3]. [0] https://www.lapdonline.org/consent-decree-overview/ https://www.lapdonline.org/consent-decree-overview/ [1] George Gascón, https://da.lacounty.gov/contact/email https://da.lacounty.gov/contact/email [2] Rob Bonta, https://oag.ca.gov/donotcall/complaint https://oag.ca.gov/donotcall/complaint [3] https://www.justice.gov/actioncenter/submit-complaint https://www.justice.gov/actioncenter/submit-complaint
- Perenti 4y agoWhile I was living in San Diego in 2000, I got talking to some policemen in La Jolla. They told me that having a criminal record is considered a plus when applying for the job, as it shows you understand the criminal mind. They were probably pulling my leg (or so I thought at the time), but now I wonder...
- Corrado 4y agoA similar report from the DOJ on the LMPD (Louisville, KY) came out yesterday[0]. Maybe bringing these departments into the light will effect change. [0] https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/08/politics/louisville-pattern-and-practice-investigation-justice-department/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/08/politics/louisville-pattern-a...