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Comment by JumpCrisscross | Hacker News Reader

> 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.

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Define "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

This is a better source. It also shows these cliques are on a spectrum from over-the-top comradery to violent gang behaviour.

Consider the Media Bias Chart https://adfontesmedia.com/gallery/

You can see that Rolling Stone skews left and is lower than the peak of reliability.

There are ex-members of that police department giving video interviews about the Executioners gang threatening and killing innocent people.

I dont understand how you can claim media bias is at the core of this story.

This is not my claim. I am replying to someone who said above

> Define "neutral" and I can find one

I think I misunderstood their comment to say "I don't understand why you are claiming Rolling Stone is not neutral". Sorry.

Thanks for the link. That largely matches my perceptions, so it at least passes my smell test.

That said, I find it rather odd the absolute highest quality news achievable is...ABC15 in Arizona. Kinda feel they should leave local stations off altogether.

This chart is garbage. CNN and MSNBC just "skews" left? Seriously? Same for Vox, Vice and WaPo?

Hard to know what "center" is in a country where even the "left" is arguably to the right of the "right" in Europe. The US's "right" is so-far-extreme-right, there's no similar extreme in Europe. All as far as I can tell (not an expert).

> This is the first I’m hearing about it.

The corruption in southland policing departments is absolutely nothing new. Rampart comes easily to mind here, but the list is unfortunately a long one and wikipedia has many documented examples.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rampart_scandal

Rampart, for instance, was such a large media issue that they even made a movie about it. Not a small one either: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1640548/

EDIT: Dorner should also ring a lot of bells too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Dorner_shootings_a...

I need to get off the internet. I thought the rampart scandal was about Woody Harrelson's disastrous AMA on Reddit.

https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/p9a1v/im_woody_harrel...

They’re related — the AMA was the scandal around the PR for the movie based on the scandal ;)

> 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

LA times has been reporting on the problem deputy gangs for years. The new part in this article is how high up their members are but it’s also captain obvious reporting as the gang members have had decades to make it up there. Still good for it to be explicitly called out.

I haven’t seen any reports in Bay Area papers but it’s been reported on in LA. It’s been local news. Similarly Californian don’t hear about >90% of the scandals in Chicago.

You should read the Wikipedia entry[1].

It very much is gangs infiltrating LAPD and SO.

On top of that, they also have their own cliques or gangs that form within.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_LASD_deputy_gangs

institutional corruption so transparent that there's a well-sourced wikipedia page

You've probably heard about this before and didn't realize it. Did you watch Training Day? That whole movie was centered around the leader of a cop gang.

Den of Thieves as well. In that movie they're actually doing their job as police but they're clearly a gang within the police force who routinely break the law and abuse their position for personal gain. They even very clearly describe themselves as a gang in one scene.

'the shield' is a TV show about this from the 2000s era. it probably doesn't hold up very well today but at the time it was pretty groundbreaking.

"This is the first I’m hearing about it. I do wish we had a more neutral source than the Rolling Stone."

How about that outstanding episode:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_Resources_Against_St...

Well documented and was the base for "GTA San Andreas" and "Training Day". And even though it has been 20 years now, the problem seems far from solved.

> 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.

This list isn't exhaustive but many of these are civilian gangs, so it's probably a case of both.

The law enforcement Banditos are not affiliated with the outlaw-motorcycle-centric gang of the same name. A Sheriff's "Bandito" might earn his ink by shooting a 1% "Bandito".

There are of course corrupt members of law enforcement who collaborate with organized crime for various nefarious purposes, but the in-department gangs are a distinct issue.

I know what you're saying, but it needs to be stated that police are also civilians.

I googled civilian and the dictionary response Google presented disagrees with you. I don't have an opinion on the topic just pointing it out.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/civilian

It specifically mentions armed services, police, and firefighters are not civilians.

I’m more surprised that firefighters aren’t civilians, but EMTs are. Its not a blanket definition for all emergency services.

Bizarrely, we Americans treat our EMTs worse than other first responders. They are trained to a lower standard and paid less but still have demanding hours and lots of stress.

That dictionary definition is simply factually and legally wrong. US law is very clear about who is and is not a civilian. Anyone acting as a sheriff's deputy is 100% a civilian. If you're not subject to the UCMJ then you're a civilian. (Some deputies are also military Reserve or National Guard members, but when activated they are no longer acting as civilian peace officers.)

Your definition is correct under international law, but that definition mainly aims to serve policies governing war, so it's not especially apt here.

Civilian in law enforcement jargon means a non-sworn position: https://www.discoverpolicing.org/explore-the-field/civilian-...

To make this more interesting, Posse Comitatus employs the language to signal "non-Federal forces" eg: National Guard activated by a state to operate domestically are referred to as "civilian law enforcement".

In any of the above cases, calling LEOs civilians would be incorrect and would eschew them of many of their responsibilities.

Just an aside, as I don't live in CA and haven't followed the current scandal, but you should take it as a matter of fact that police departments in all major cities of the US have been formally and informally infiltrated by street gangs. For the past 10-20 years all major orgs have reoriented from physical control towards establishing political and social influence and co-opting powerful antagonistic organizations is a big part of that.

If you're from the Bay Area, you may want to read "The Riders Come out at Night," about a gang within the Oakland Police Department. (and more generally about organized misconduct by the OPD in recent history)

https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Riders-Come-Out-a...

Here in Australia - I’ve heard of police corruption, but never heard of corrupt police forming a gang. I can’t remember hearing anything about that in the UK or New Zealand or Canada either. Is this another one of those “only in America” things?

Well, I’m sure not only in America-a lot of developing countries I wouldn’t be surprised if such things existed too-but not the countries the US would want to be compared to

> never heard of corrupt police forming a gang. I can’t remember hearing anything about that in the UK or New Zealand or Canada either.

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

I can certainly speak to that effect as a Canadian aware of at least one similar 'police gang'

> I can certainly speak to that effect as a Canadian aware of at least one similar 'police gang'

What’s it called? Where is it?

York Regional Police, for one.

https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2021/02/24/massive-gta-mafi...

https://www.cp24.com/news/two-york-region-cops-charged-in-co...

Neither article mentions a "deputy gang". It just talks about ordinary police misconduct and corruption, which happens anywhere. It never mentions corrupt police forming a gang with an identifiable name, emblem, membership, etc – which is something I've never heard of outside of the US.

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