ReportWire

Tag: deputy gang

  • Ex-deputy says he was fired after refusing to affiliate with alleged deputy gang

    Ex-deputy says he was fired after refusing to affiliate with alleged deputy gang

    [ad_1]

    A former Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy says he was fired after refusing to take part in law enforcement gang activity, according to a lawsuit filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court.

    Federico Carlo, the ex-lawman behind the suit, alleges he was wrongly accused of giving a Nazi salute and sharing a sexually explicit photo, then “abruptly terminated” by a “tattooed Regulator deputy gang member” who is now the acting commander overseeing training and personnel.

    The acting commander, Capt. John Pat Macdonald, did not respond to a request for comment, and the department did not answer questions about whether he has or had a Regulator tattoo.

    “The department has not officially received this claim but strives to provide a fair and equitable working environment for all employees,” officials wrote in an emailed statement to The Times. “Any act of retaliation, harassment, and discrimination will not be tolerated and is a violation of the department’s policy and values.”

    Neither Carlo nor his attorney offered comment for this story. Carlo sued the county and is asking for unspecified damages.

    The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department has long been plagued by allegations that some of its highest-ranking officials sport tattoos representing exclusionary deputy subgroups. Last month, former Undersheriff Tim Murakami admitted under oath that he once had a tattoo associated with an East Los Angeles Station group known as the Cavemen.

    Last year, the news site Capital & Main reported that current Undersheriff April Tardy admitted to having a station tattoo that some in the department said signified the V Boys deputy gang. And in 2022, Larry Del Mese, chief of staff to former Sheriff Alex Villanueva, publicly admitted membership in the Grim Reapers.

    Yet last week sheriff’s officials told The Times the issue is “not reflective of the entire department” and pointed out that there are “multiple investigations related to deputy gangs” currently underway, and that a new anti-gang policy is being negotiated with the deputy labor unions.

    For decades, the Sheriff’s Department has been bedeviled by allegations about gangs of deputies running roughshod over certain stations and floors of the jail. The groups are known by monikers such as the Executioners, the Vikings and the Regulators, and their members often bear the same sequentially numbered tattoos.

    The group at the center of Carlo’s lawsuit, the Regulators, is typically affiliated with the Century Sheriff’s Station in Lynwood. It is one of the older deputy subgroups in the department, and it is commonly represented by the symbol of a skeleton in a cowboy hat. In recent years there have been some indications — including in a Rand Corp. study commissioned by county lawyers — that the group is no longer actively adding new members. Late last year, though, oversight officials spotted a Regulators sticker outside the Century Regional Detention Facility next door to the station.

    The suit filed in late February traces Carlo’s problems back to 2005, when, he alleges, a deputy who was then the leader of the Regulators labeled him a “rat” because he refused to lie on probable cause reports.

    A few years later, the suit says, two other alleged Regulators flunked Carlo out of training for the airborne division, which, he alleges, “had everything to do” with the fact that he “was not a member of a deputy gang and refused to violate the law.”

    By mid-2019, Carlo was working at the department’s Emergency Vehicle Operations Center in Pomona as an instructor. He clashed with some of the other instructors who he said were risking safety by cutting corners to save time. After he complained and asked to be moved to another shift, tension started building between him and some of the other instructors — one of whom challenged him to a fight, according to the lawsuit. Later, that same deputy allegedly created disturbances, once by disrupting a class Carlo was teaching and another time by nearly crashing a patrol car into another deputy.

    Eventually, Carlo reported the problems to his superiors. During a meeting with his lieutenant in 2022, Carlo allegedly told him that there had been “numerous vehicle collisions” caused by instructors, and that he’d even been hurt in one such crash himself. According to the lawsuit, when Carlo questioned why the lieutenant hadn’t done more to supervise the training, the lieutenant ordered him to rewrite the unit’s safety guidelines and give a briefing to the whole unit on them.

    That March, according to the lawsuit, Carlo found out that a complaint had been filed against him alleging he’d made a Nazi salute when speaking about a sergeant with a German-sounding name.

    A few weeks later, the suit says, Carlo was temporarily transferred out of the unit, as officials investigated the complaint. Near the end of summer, Carlo’s lieutenant called to tell him he’d be coming back to the training center — only to reverse course a few days later because another complaint had been filed against him, this time for sexual harassment.

    It emerged that after the unit briefing that Carlo’s lieutenant instructed him to do earlier that year, two of the deputies who attended started talking and allegedly realized Carlo had shown them both an explicit picture on his phone. They said he’d implied it was an image of him and a female sergeant, according to the lawsuit. One of the deputies was the instructor who’d previously challenged Carlo to a fight.

    “This was false,” the suit said. “No such photo ever existed.”

    Though in 2022 officials closed the complaint about the Nazi salute — an accusation Carlo also denied — they kept investigating the sexual harassment complaint, according to the suit. In 2023, after what the lawsuit described as “years of retaliation, harassment [and] discrimination,” Carlo was fired.

    “On April 13, 2023, plaintiff was terminated under false pretenses,” the suit says. “Captain Pat [Macdonald], the supervisor who made the decision on plaintiff’s termination, is a tattooed Regulator deputy gang member.”

    Department officials confirmed to The Times that Carlo “separated from the department” last April after an internal investigation. But they did not comment on the accusations about Macdonald’s alleged Regulators tattoo, and they did not answer questions as to whether he is still believed to have it.

    The Regulators have long been the subject of misconduct allegations. Nearly two decades ago, The Times reported on allegations that members of the group extorted money from other deputies, acted like gang members and controlled shift scheduling and administration at the station.

    At the time, some in the department compared the Regulators to the earlier Lynwood Vikings, a now-defunct group once described by a federal judge as a “neo-Nazi white supremacist gang.”

    Deputies with Regulators tattoos told The Times then that they didn’t do anything inappropriate and had been unfairly maligned. They said their ink represented a close-knit group of deputies who worked hard.

    “It’s like the all-stars of a baseball team,” one tattooed deputy said at the time. “You get the best.”

    [ad_2]

    Keri Blakinger

    Source link

  • Villanueva denies existence of deputy gangs as L.A. County officials seek accountability

    Villanueva denies existence of deputy gangs as L.A. County officials seek accountability

    [ad_1]

    During four hours of combative testimony in front of the Civilian Oversight Commission on Friday morning, former Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva attempted to minimize the problem of deputy gangs, refusing to acknowledge their existence and alleging the problem of tattooed subgroups is “actually disappearing” from the department.

    “You’re still trying to pretend that deputy gangs exist and that they operate in the countryside pillaging and plundering,” he told special counsel Bert Deixler. Minutes before, Villanueva testified that if the department got rid of all deputies with controversial tattoos the county would have to fire so many people that it would create a “gargantuan public safety crisis.”

    The former sheriff, currently running for county supervisor, told the commission he never did a systematic investigation into deputy gangs. He said he did not ask employees about the nature of their tattoos, and did not question his top leadership about their involvement in the groups, even though his former chief of staff publicly admitted to once being a member of the Grim Reapers, linked to the now-closed Lennox station.

    For years, Villanueva defied subpoenas to testify under oath. It was only after a county judge scheduled a hearing to decide whether to order him to comply that he reversed course. Though there were no major surprises in Friday’s testimony, commission chair Sean Kennedy said the hearing served an important purpose: showing that even the county’s former top cop can face tough questions.

    “It is essential that an elected sheriff be held accountable when he flouts oversight subpoenas,” Kennedy told The Times on Saturday. Demonstrating that, he said, also “puts the pressure” on the current sheriff to continue moving forward with his plans to rid the department of deputy gangs.

    Sheriff Robert Luna, who took office in 2022, vowed last year to “eradicate all deputy gangs” from the department. But the problem has vexed oversight officials and county leaders for years, and there’s no clear path to eliminating them.

    For five decades, the Sheriff’s Department has been plagued by rogue groups of deputies accused of running roughshod over certain stations and promoting a culture of violence. The groups are commonly known by names such as the Executioners, the Banditos, the Regulators and the Little Devils, and members typically have matching, sequentially numbered tattoos featuring macabre imagery.

    Last year, Inspector General Max Huntsman ordered nearly three dozen deputies to submit to questioning about deputy gangs and show investigators their tattoos in the hope of compiling a list of potential gang members. But the unions filed suit and a judge temporarily blocked the county watchdog’s inquiries.

    At the same time, the sheriff has been working to put in place a stronger policy banning participation in deputy gangs, though the latest proposal is still being hammered out with the unions. Though Villanueva implemented an anti-gang policy in 2020, critics said it didn’t go far enough.

    The oversight commission, meanwhile, has been trying to investigate deputy gangs for years, despite ongoing problems with reluctant witnesses. The former undersheriff, Tim Murakami, has yet to comply with the commission’s subpoena efforts — but Deixler still raised questions about his affiliations during Friday’s hearing.

    Minutes after the testimony began, Deixler played a 2022 clip of Villanueva likening deputy gangs to unicorns.

    “Everybody knows what a unicorn looks like, but I challenge you, name one,” he said during a televised pre-election debate. “Name a single deputy gang member.”

    Then Deixler put a photo of a unicorn on the screen and asked: “That’s a unicorn, isn’t it, sir?”

    Seconds later, he displayed a picture of the former undersheriff and, referencing the name of an alleged deputy gang linked to the East Los Angeles station, said: “And that’s a Caveman, isn’t it, sir?”

    Villanueva bristled, stiffly telling Deixler, “That’s a former undersheriff.”

    At one point, Deixler asked Villanueva whether he’d been a Caveman himself, which the former sheriff denied.

    Despite the academic setting at Loyola Law School, the special hearing on deputy gangs — the commission’s ninth in the past two years — was marked by spectacle and bluster. Audience members interrupted often with cheers, jeers and obscenities, while the former sheriff repeatedly insulted the commission, the inspector general, the media and the special counsel’s lines of inquiry, which he called “dumb” and “appalling.”

    Deixler forcefully questioned Villanueva — at times shouting questions — about some of the most publicized deputy groups, as well as a newly revealed one first made public last week in The Times. That group, the Industry Indians, came to light when the department began investigating an off-duty fight in the parking lot of a Montclair bowling alley and discovered that some of the deputies involved allegedly had Industry Indians tattoos.

    Once Villanueva admitted knowing about the incident, Deixler questioned whether he’d been aware of it in late 2022 when he compared deputy gangs to unicorns. The former sheriff said he only learned of the investigation as he was leaving office, and that it was an example of “misconduct” at a social event, not evidence of gang behavior.

    Villanueva said he did not ask people what “ink they have on their bodies,” and that during his time in office he “never examined anyone’s tattoo.” Even after then-Chief April Tardy — who is now the undersheriff — testified to the commission that the Banditos met the legal definition of a law enforcement gang, Villanueva said he did not launch an investigation.

    “We elected not to touch this matter only because it became a hot political potato that you guys were eager to jump on,” he said, adding that he thought Tardy’s testimony was false.

    Instead, he said, he spent his time in office focused on rooting out misconduct, which he argued was more important than investigating tattoos or subgroups.

    “It’s no secret there are subgroups within the Sheriff’s Department,” he said. “They exist everywhere, and they will always exist.”

    Calling them gangs, he said, is “missing the key element — that is misconduct.”

    For some of the community members who turned out to watch the hearing, the takeaways seemed predictable.

    “He’s still denying deputy gangs exist, and he’s still denying that gang tattoos are a problem in the department,” said Stephanie Luna, whose nephew was killed by deputies in 2018. “He said the same things he’s been saying for years, but all in one shot.”

    But Friday’s hearing may not be the only opportunity to question Villanueva. When the testimony ended, Deixler still had questions left to ask — and the commission signaled interest in calling the former sheriff back in March.

    [ad_2]

    Keri Blakinger

    Source link

  • After years-long fight, ex-sheriff agrees to comply with subpoenas, testify on deputy gangs

    After years-long fight, ex-sheriff agrees to comply with subpoenas, testify on deputy gangs

    [ad_1]

    After years of resisting subpoenas to testify under oath about deputy gangs, former Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva has reversed course and agreed to appear in front of the Civilian Oversight Commission.

    His lawyer notified the commission of the decision in a December letter stating that Villanueva “is very willing to testify” in January and that he will “answer any question you have under oath.”

    The change of heart comes days after a county judge scheduled a hearing to decide whether to order the former sheriff, who is running for county supervisor against incumbent Janice Hahn, to comply with the commission’s subpoenas.

    Villanueva did not immediately respond to a request for comment. But his attorney, Linda Savitt, confirmed in an email to The Times last week that her client plans to follow through and appear in front of the commission next month.

    “He is going to testify under oath,” she wrote. “He’s a private citizen now.”

    Despite Savitt’s assurances, Sean Kennedy — who chairs the oversight commission — expressed some skepticism, pointing out that the former sheriff “said he was going to appear once before and then announced on Twitter that he wasn’t going to.”

    Earlier this year, the commission’s special counsel issued a 70-page report condemning the “cancer” of violent deputy gangs and urging Sheriff Robert Luna to create a stronger policy banning the secretive groups.

    The report’s findings and recommendations relied heavily on testimony from a series of seven public hearings, many of which involved witnesses testifying under oath. Despite being subpoenaed, Villanueva and former Undersheriff Tim Murakami both refused to testify at the hearings.

    The legal wrangling began in 2020, after the Board of Supervisors granted the commission subpoena power, which voters then affirmed by approving Measure R. A few months later, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a law granting subpoena power to oversight bodies statewide.

    That same year, the commission issued a subpoena directing the sheriff to testify about his response to COVID-19 inside the jails. Villanueva questioned the legality of the subpoena, which he called a “public shaming endeavor.” The dispute ended up in court, but Villanueva avoided a contempt hearing by agreeing to answer the commission’s questions voluntarily.

    Afterward, oversight officials issued more subpoenas, and Villanueva resisted them, resulting in multiple court cases.

    In one of those cases, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Elaine Lu scheduled a contempt hearing for late last year, but called it off after Villanueva’s lawyers asked a higher court to step in.

    The former sheriff’s legal counsel argued that the 2020 legislation Newsom signed described a two-step process and that the judge first needed to issue an order directing Villanueva to comply with the subpoena. Only if he ignored that could he be found in contempt, his lawyer said.

    In September, an appeals court agreed. This month, lawyers for the county embarked on the two-step process by asking for a hearing so a judge could decide whether to order Villanueva and Murakami to comply with the subpoenas.

    Less than two weeks later, Villanueva’s lawyer sent the oversight commission’s Kennedy a letter about the former sheriff’s willingness to testify in January. Unlike Villanueva, Murakami has not given any indication of a newfound willingness to speak to the commission, Kennedy told The Times.

    Previously, the former undersheriff has cited a medical condition as his reason for refusing to testify. His attorney did not respond to The Times’ request for comment.

    [ad_2]

    Keri Blakinger

    Source link

  • After a year in office, L.A. County sheriff talks deputy gangs, jail deaths, overdoses

    After a year in office, L.A. County sheriff talks deputy gangs, jail deaths, overdoses

    [ad_1]

    By the time Sheriff Robert Luna ousted his predecessor and became L.A. County’s top cop in late 2022, the nation’s largest sheriff’s department was awash in controversy.

    The half-century-old problem of deputy gangs had brought the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department under increasing national scrutiny. Jail conditions were becoming increasingly dire, and the decades-old lawsuits about them seemed no closer to resolution. On top of that, the department was short on staff, mired in scandal and often at odds with county leaders.

    A year later, many of those problems remain unresolved — and critics say the new sheriff has little to show for his time in office. The department has yet to ban deputy gang tattoos, and the courts have stymied efforts to identify the gangs’ alleged members. County data show roughly 20% of sworn positions are effectively vacant, jail death rates are soaring and, in June, the county only narrowly avoided a contempt hearing over conditions inside its lockups.

    Still, the signs of change are unmistakable. After taking office, Luna quickly opened up more access to oversight officials. He created the Office of Constitutional Policing to help the county comply with four federal consent decrees, eradicate gangs and overhaul policies that could help reform the department.

    So far this year, deputy-involved shootings are down, and the jail population is falling. Deputies are using force against inmates less frequently, and the department created a timer system to make sure jailers stopped chaining mentally ill people to benches for days. And this week, in an interview at the Hall of Justice, Luna told The Times he’s formulating a plan to close the county’s oldest lockup.

    “Men’s Central Jail needs to be replaced,” he said. “We need something that resembles a care campus that can deal with what custody should look like toward the future.”

    Exactly how that would work is still fuzzy, and the sheriff would only promise more details in the future, hinting at something perhaps loosely inspired by the gentler prison systems of European countries. Making that a reality will be an uphill battle — just like some of the other lofty goals Luna has in mind.

    “For a sheriff’s department or a police department to be successful, we need to be properly led and properly partnered, staffed, equipped and trained,” he said. “I was handed a department that has been deficient. … And we have a lot of work to do. A lot of work.”

    Over a little more than an hour, Luna explained what some pieces of that work could entail. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

    *****

    One of the issues that was pretty central in your campaign was eradicating deputy gangs. A year later, there’s still not a strong anti-gang policy in place. Why is that?

    During the campaign I talked about deputy gangs. I raised my hand and said, “We have a problem.” So I’m admitting there’s an issue. That’s why we started the Office of Constitutional Policing. But remember this: any time we’re dealing with employees’ hours, working conditions or things that impact people’s daily lives, we have to go through a meet-and-confer process. When we started to draft the policy — although the Civilian Oversight Commission gave us their version of it — we still had to go through it and make sure that it was something that could work.

    So [Office of Constitutional Policing director] Eileen Decker not only had to go through the Civilian Oversight Commission and the Office of Inspector General, but also the federal monitors. Once that was done, there were unofficial conversations going on with the different labor organizations. And then, I want to say sometime in October-ish, we gave it to them in a formal manner. That’s when it becomes official.

    This problem has existed for 50 years. I’ve been in office now for a year. I want to fix this. That is my goal. Yes, it is taking a little bit longer than I would like to see, but our labor organizations have been good partners at the table. We don’t agree on everything, but I think we’re going to get to a good place.

    Do you think you’ll have a new anti-gang policy in place at some point in this next year, during your second year in office?

    That is my absolute expectation.

    There was a widely criticized incident in Palmdale, where a deputy punched a woman with an infant in her arms. Can you tell me anything about if you’re making changes to policies about when deputies can punch civilians?

    It’s still being worked out. But from my perspective, if one of my deputies is getting his butt kicked and it’s a fisticuffs, you have a right to defend yourself. And if you have to use personal weapons — punching somebody in the face — to do that, then you have to defend yourself. I would not take that very valuable tool away from our employees.

    But if you have a suspect who is not fighting you but only resisting, that’s where I draw the line and say that you don’t just start punching people. I get it, sometimes it’s very difficult to handcuff people. And historically that has been allowed here and that’s what is catching a lot of employees off guard. The miscommunication is [they think], “Oh, he just wants to take it away from us.” No, there’s a time and place for it. Because when you’re using force on an individual, it’s to gain control, not to punish. There’s a difference there.

    Was the incident in Palmdale what prompted you to evaluate the policies about punching people?

    It was one of many things. We’ve had several incidents over the last year where personal weapons were used to overcome resistance, not in a fight.

    According to a recent letter sent from the American Civil Liberties Union to the Board of Supervisors, the Sheriff’s Department has been finding uses of force against jail inmates to be within policy more than 98% of the time. But the federal court-appointed monitors agree only about two-thirds of the time. How do you explain that discrepancy?

    I was told about that ACLU report probably about three or four hours ago. We’re making inquiries about if there is actually a discrepancy. But there are definitely challenges. When we’re talking about use of force, the federal monitors have said they don’t like the fact that they believe that our front-line supervisors are not holding employees accountable. So we are currently looking at that.

    But as I’m talking to all of our supervisors, I’m talking about accountability. We have to be courageous and identify challenges that we’re having because that negatively impacts public trust and credibility. And honestly, it’s hanging our employees out to dry. Because if you’re not taking corrective actions or showing people that this is wrong, then other employees won’t believe it’s wrong.

    A lot of the employees that I talk to when I visit stations, they’re frustrated with me because there’s been instances where people have been disciplined and they believe that you’re holding us to this standard, but yet you’re not providing the required training to get us there. So I’m doing an evaluation on our training — but I don’t need an evaluation to tell me we’re deficient.

    One of the other issues with the jails has been the high death toll. As of today, the jails are a couple deaths away from having the highest death rate in at least 15 years. Why do you think that is?

    Every time I see a notification that somebody dies in our custody, it’s like, “What the heck?” You don’t want to see any. I don’t want anything to go wrong while they’re in our custody.

    I think there is a perception that people who are dying in our custody are dying due to force incidents or murders. Now, once in a while you will get somebody who does get murdered in our facility. This last year we attributed nine deaths to overdoses. And there are nine other autopsies that are still pending, but a lot of these cases look like they’re from natural causes.

    A lot of the people that we take into custody, they’re probably getting the best healthcare they may have ever received in their entire life while they’re with us, which means that rarely does somebody go see a doctor. Then when they get to us, you get people who are ill, fall ill and then they end up dying in our custody. So if I have nine overdoses, how do I reduce those?

    Some facilities have tried to minimize opioid overdoses by expanding access to medication-assisted treatment that reduces the urge to get high. Historically, this is something that your department has not broadly used. Do you have any plans to expand that?

    I want to dig a little deeper. If there is resistance, is it from our department? Is it from Correctional Health Services? Is there a reason? I’d like to know. We have already gotten more canines to do drug detection. We need better body scanners. We’re working through our CFO to try and figure out how we can do that. We believe that a lot of the drugs are coming in through mail.

    I envision — and I’m already working on this — all of our custody facilities getting really good internet service so that I can get tablets in and eliminate mail. Can you imagine if I can give a family the ability to FaceTime, what that would do? There’s so many opportunities.

    [ad_2]

    Keri Blakinger

    Source link

  • A skeleton and a smoking gun: Why a newly elected deputy union board member’s tattoo is sparking concern

    A skeleton and a smoking gun: Why a newly elected deputy union board member’s tattoo is sparking concern

    [ad_1]

    A union representing Los Angeles County sheriff deputies recently elected to its board of directors a veteran lawman who has a controversial tattoo and was involved in two fatal shootings that cost the county $4 million in legal payouts, sparking concern among oversight officials and justice advocates.

    Incoming Assn. of Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs board member Jason Zabala previously described his tattoo under oath, saying it depicted a skeleton in a cowboy hat with a smoking rifle and the number 140. He called the stark combination of imagery a “station tattoo,” but others described it as the symbol of a deputy gang known as the Regulators.

    Zabala has previously denied being part of the group, saying that the number simply meant he was the 140th person to get that same design, and describing the tattoo as a proud mark of camaraderie among fellow deputies. This week he did not respond to a request for comment.

    Union president Richard Pippin defended Zabala in an emailed statement Thursday, calling him a “family oriented guy with a big heart” who has dedicated his life to helping others.

    Still, advocates — such as James Nelson, campaign and program manager for the community coalition Dignity and Power Now — worried Zabala’s election would not bode well for the department’s efforts to rein in deputy gangs and gang tattoos.

    “It’s a bad sign,” Nelson said. “It isn’t the sheriff that runs the department — it’s the unions.”

    For decades, the Sheriff’s Department has been plagued by gangs of deputies running roughshod over certain stations and floors of the jail. The groups are known by monikers such as the Executioners, the Vikings and the Regulators, and their members often bear the same sequentially numbered tattoos.

    During his swearing-in ceremony nearly a year ago, Sheriff Robert Luna spoke of the need to “eliminate deputy gangs” from the department. Though he created a new office to do that, the department has not yet settled on a policy banning gangs or gang tattoos.

    One hurdle to clear before implementing any sweeping new policy is the back-and-forth of the bargaining process with labor leaders, including ALADS.

    “We’ve been hearing that the reason we can’t move forward with passing an anti-gang policy — which is the first step in making good on the pledge to get rid of them — is because the sheriff has to negotiate with ALADS,” said Sean Kennedy, who chairs the Civilian Oversight Commission.

    “Those sessions are taking much longer than we anticipated,” Kennedy said. “And then, when we hear that he’ll be meeting and conferring with an organization with a tattooed Regulator on the board of directors, it makes everyone believe that we’re engaged in a futile process.”

    Pippin disputed that, saying the election outcome “will not change” the organization’s mission and values when it comes to the bargaining process.

    “We remain committed to working with the department and the county to achieve the best possible outcomes, not only for our members, but also for members of the communities they serve,” he said.

    He did not address the nature or significance of Zabala’s tattoo.

    County records show Zabala first started working for the Sheriff’s Department in 2002. Nine years later, he was involved in an on-duty crash that left a woman with spinal injuries. The case settled for $80,000 before trial, according to the news site Knock LA.

    Then in 2013, Zabala and his partner stopped a man riding a bicycle and ended up shooting him as he lay face down in his backyard. Prosecutors said the man — Terry Laffitte — had been resisting, so they deemed the shooting lawful. After Laffitte’s family filed suit, the county settled the case for $1.5 million.

    The year after that, Zabala was involved in the killing of Johnny Martinez, a 28-year-old man with schizophrenia who was shot 36 times by deputies outside his Vermont Knolls home. Prosecutors also deemed that shooting justified, though in 2018 a civil lawsuit on behalf of the Martinez family ended with a hefty $2.5 million settlement.

    It was the 2013 shooting that brought Zabala’s ink to the fore. In connection with the civil lawsuit, Zabala was deposed three times in 2015 and 2016 and asked to describe his tattoo.

    Over the course of those depositions he offered additional details about the ink, including that in addition to a smoking gun, the skeleton is holding a “memorial stone” with “CEN” — for Century Station — written on it, along with the Roman numerals XXI. According to Kennedy, those are all key elements of a Regulators’ tattoo.

    “The tombstone in the background with the letters for Century Station is some of the main iconography for the Regulators,” he told The Times.

    In Zabala’s tattoo, there are also flames along the bottom of the tattoo along with the words “Beati Pacifici,” which he said under oath translates to “Blessed are the Peacemakers.” The entire tattoo is 5 to 6 inches high, on the lower part of his left leg.

    At the time, Zabala said in depositions that the Old West style of his tattoo honored the Sheriff’s Department’s founding in 1850 and that skeletons are “an icon of the peace officer.” A Loyola Marymount University report later described Zabala’s ink as “Regulators tattoo #140.”

    The district attorney’s office later investigated whether Zabala committed perjury when he described the significance of the number 140 on his tattoo.

    Ultimately prosecutors declined to pursue the case, saying it wasn’t clear that Zabala committed perjury. Even if he did lie about his tattoo, they said, it would not have made a difference in the outcome of the case.

    “It is unlikely that a false statement about one aspect of one tattoo, among several, would probably influence the outcome of the wrongful death lawsuit,” prosecutors wrote.

    When lawyers for the county agreed to settle the lawsuit in 2017, records show they told a Sheriff’s Department investigator that the allegation of perjury was a factor in their decision.

    In this year’s union election, Zabala was one of eight candidates for four open seats. He will be sworn in to the seven-member board at Friday morning’s meeting, along with Julian Stern, John Perez and Tony Meraz.

    [ad_2]

    Keri Blakinger

    Source link