Los Angeles County supervisors voted unanimously Tuesday to force the Sheriff's Department to identify and publicly name every deputy gang operating within its ranks, giving the agency 120 days to produce a list that includes groups still under investigation. The motion also directs inspectors to search sheriff's stations, county jails and patrol vehicles for unofficial logos, badges or other insignia tied to these cliques.
The 5-0 vote, reported by the Los Angeles Times, caps years of pressure on the department to account for cliques that have operated inside its stations for decades. The motion requires the Sheriff's Department to work with county counsel, the Office of Inspector General and the Independent Citizens Advisory Commission on what officials describe as a wide-ranging probe, and it calls for the agency to disclose names, symbols, identifying icons — including tattoos — and the status of any ongoing investigations. The list will name the gangs themselves, not individual members, according to the motion.
Sheriff Robert Luna told the board his department had opened 47 inquiries into alleged abuse of force by suspected deputy gang members as of the end of September, the Los Angeles Daily News reported. Of those, 32 have been closed, 20 were referred to Internal Affairs, 12 required no further action and 15 remained pending. Luna said his administration had done more to address deputy gangs in the past three years than anyone else in LASD or county history, and that the department has implemented 22 of 26 recommendations made in a 2023 report from the Sheriff Civilian Oversight Commission.
A Policy Years in the Making
Luna told supervisors the department has been plagued by law enforcement gangs for 50 years, and that abusive force is tied to what he called deputy cliques. He said he secured a policy prohibiting those cliques through meet-and-confer negotiations with the Association of Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs and the Los Angeles County Professional Peace Officers Association, both of which are involved in the bargaining process. The department's newer policy builds on one announced two years earlier and extends beyond deputy gangs and hate groups to cover any unauthorized clique, the Los Angeles Times reported separately. The department said the agency and the unions came to an agreement during the meet-and-confer process and that all concerns were resolved.
Not everyone sees that timeline as fast enough. Supervisor Janice Hahn said some prohibitions involving alleged deputy gangs had been stalled in meet-and-confer processes for six years, and county staff have said that restrictions on symbols could trigger disciplinary action, meaning employment-related provisions must still be negotiated with labor. Joseph Nicchitta reported that some of the board's proposed actions would need to go through that same bargaining process before they could take effect.
The September Delay
The board had tabled a related measure on September 15, though accounts of that pause differ. The Daily News reported the board placed reports on the number of deputy gangs on hold for 45 days, while LA Public Press reported the board delayed a vote on a proposal requiring the department to formally identify deputy gangs by 90 days. Supervisor Holly Mitchell, who authored Tuesday's motion, had removed sections of the earlier September version dealing with how labor negotiations could impede its directives.
Mitchell told the board the motion seeks answers, strengthens efforts to eradicate deputy gangs and lays out the options available to supervisors going forward. She said residents continue to experience retaliation and negative consequences they attribute to deputy gangs, and that many are afraid to report incidents out of fear of further reprisal. Supervisor Hilda Solis identified public incident reporting, independent investigations and naming the gangs as the motion's key elements, arguing that investigations conducted outside the department's chain of command are necessary because the department cannot adequately police itself.
Public Testimony and Personal Accounts
About 50 members of the public addressed the board before the vote, with 99% voicing support for the motion. Among them was Anthony Robles of La Puente, who said two deputies stopped and harassed him because he is Latino while he was driving home from Rio Hondo College. Independent groups, news organizations, county departments and courts have linked deputy gangs to retaliation against whistleblowers and to the targeting of Black and Latino residents, according to the motion's backers.
Deputy cliques have grown from six to 27 groups over the past 50 years, and have been tied to excessive force, criminal and administrative misconduct, a code of silence and a culture of impunity. Named groups have included the Banditos, the Lynwood Vikings, the Industry Indians based at the Industry sheriff's station, and the 3000 Boys. A 2021 Loyola Marymount University report documented 18 such groups over the preceding half-century, the Los Angeles Times noted.
The Financial and Legal Toll
The county paid about $112 million in settlements defending the Sheriff's Department during the 2024-25 fiscal year alone, though it is not established that all of those settlements involved deputy gangs specifically, the Times reported. Separately, the Justice LA Coalition released a report finding the county paid $70 million in settlements tied to alleged deputy gang misconduct. The county's Office of Inspector General has said that since the early 1990s, the county has paid more than $54 million in settlements from 59 legal claims related to deputy gangs.
One concrete example: on April 7, the board voted to pay $8 million to settle a long-pending lawsuit in which deputies alleged they were pressured to leave the East Los Angeles station by the Banditos, according to the Daily News. The plaintiffs in that case claimed Banditos deputies sucker-punched one of them during a 2018 training session. Luna told supervisors that deputy-gang-related lawsuits have fallen sharply since then, from 19 filed in 2020 to just two filed last year and none so far in 2026.
Political Backdrop and Oversight Fights
Luna defeated former Sheriff Alex Villanueva in the November 3 election. Villanueva had denied that deputy gangs existed as recently as 2022 and had refused for months to obey subpoenas ordering him to appear before the Civilian Oversight Commission regarding the issue. Supervisor Kathryn Barger called Luna's actions on the issue refreshing, though she said she wants to see more action and a faster path toward writing permanent job characteristics and prohibitions into deputy contracts. Barger added that law enforcement officials should be able to do their jobs without what she described as a dark cloud hanging over them.
Luna said the department offers the public several ways to report deputy gang retaliation or harassment, including an online portal, phone calls, or the Office of Inspector General. USC sociology and religion professor Paul Lichterman said public accountability represents the first step toward justice for incarcerated people — a point that carries added weight given that Los Angeles County jail facilities have recorded 34 deaths so far this year. County officials are expected to return with a confidential report and a public report to the board in roughly four months.
