Thread by @BisHilarious

Today @cerisecastle released, "A Tradition of Violence: The History of Deputy Gangs in the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department." The amount of pain & trauma she had to ingest has been expansive and at times, all-consuming. And she is only the reporter. knc.la/tradition

Every act of state violence causes a ripple effect of pain and trauma. Starting with the person (who is forced by the state into victimhood) and moving to their friends, families, and communities.

If you are privileged enough to have never been on the receiving end of state harassment and/or violence or if you have never forsaken your privilege to put yourself in a position to receive it, you reading this series is that ripple finding its way to you.

LASD has the nerve to talk about victims yet they never mention the victims they create. Not the ones in this series and not the ones that fell beyond the scope of this particular effort.

In my opinion, these things are true: LASD gang members kill, quite literally, for fun. They destroy families to seem cool to their evil coworkers. They terrorize communities because they know no one has ever stopped them and they can do so without any real accountability.

This series is only a selection of cases. It is a 13-part series and yet, it is miniscule. There is so much more violence perpetrated by LASD gang members that have yet to be identified. And there is so much violence perpetrated by LASD employees that are NOT in a gang.

Even when they are fired (and not rehired as they often are) they live lives where they don't have to confront their actions. They become cops elsewhere. They work in schools. They try to become actors! They remain untouched & unscathed by the ripples of destruction they created.

This series is about the deputies who got caught. This series is about victims that, for whatever reason, were successful in bringing their cases forward. Both of these groups, in my opinion, based on the research I've done for my involvement with the series, are the minority.

I can not express to you how stupid you must be to get caught when the entire system is designed for them to get away with this shit.

This is not about LASD being "infiltrated." The gang moniker is unnecessary. You can find and throw out every member, every prospect, and every affiliate and it will not fix the problem.

We need to abolish LASD. And that STARTS with defunding, accountability, firing Villanueva, and several other interim measures that have NOTHING to do with reform. There is no reforming this. They need to be dismantled.

I'll have several other threads about the series, its implications, and my thoughts as it progresses. Please read every part of this incredible work. Please tap into the work of the #checkthesheriff coalition and support the families in the ways they've expressed they desire it.

Support @KNOCKdotLA (the only publication that has the bravery required to publish this) and @cerisecastle who poured her entire being into this project. This took six months. Neither of these parties have six months for one project money lol.

Fuck LASD, Jackie Lacey, the Board of Supervisors, and the FBI. And you can tell them I said so. They are cowards. Anyone that allows this to continue might as well get inked themselves. Once again, the link: Parts 1-3 out now. knc.la/tradition #LASDgangs