Thread by @CheckSheriff

The LA County Civilian Oversight Commission (COC) is meeting now! Families impacted by sheriff violence will share their stories as COC considers actions to take against LASD🧵

Essential info:
1. Participate: bit.ly/3sp1PIW Pass: COC123
2. Watch: bit.ly/2GYpScR
3. Listen: [phone], code: 145 351 6317
View the agenda: bit.ly/2Rr5qsn

Commissioner Ocen opposes a proposal to expand funding to LASD for mental health teams. She believes the money should be diverted to the Department of Public Health.

We need rapid response teams who can adequately support people experiencing mental health crises/declines. This cannot be accomplished through LASD.

Why do decision-makers see LASD as the only agency capable of creating responses to health crises? We do not send the Sheriffs to community members having heart attacks. It makes no sense!

Patti Giggans and Sean Kennedy support funding to Mental Evaluation Teams (MET) via LASD because MET doesn't kill community members. Do they not understand that MET can exist outside of LASD?

The commission is now taking public comment regarding the motion to expand funding to LASD to build the capacity of Mental Evaluation Teams

"Cops cannot be reformed. Policing was founded on racism. If commissioners want immediate action then immediately disband LASD"

"The Sheriff's department is so broken. The bar is so low. You say MET under LASD hasn't killed anyone yet. You know how sad that sounds? We deserve more. LASD doesn't deserve a penny."

The first three public commenters have clearly stated we want to defund LASD and redirect those resources to our communities and crisis response programs NOT connected to law enforcement.

Community members experiencing mental health crises who end up getting murdered by LASD are criminalized after the fact. Their character maligned, their families harassed. LASD traumatizes our communities.

Day after day, month after month community members demand the Civilian Oversight Commission to take a bold stance against LASD. The only commissioner standing up for Black and Brown communities is Commissioner Ocen.

The aunt of Anthony Vargas is giving public comment! She vehemently rejects increasing funding to LASD. She's giving examples of when community called for the MET team and the Sheriffs arrived instead. #RestInPowerAnthonyVargas

After all that has happened (killing of community members, family harassment, deputy gangs, reinstatement of crooked cops), we're still here trying to give LASD more money? We should be dismantling LASD!

Commissioner Ocen @priscilla_ocen speaking again echoing public comments that we should not be measuring LASD response to crises for whether LASD kills someone or not...

That is a *LOW BAR.*

SERIOUSLY look at non-LASD alternatives. Others are! Why are we @LACountyCOC not?!

Now Sister Helen Jones, mother of #JohnHorton, is on.

All these #LASDgangs...if they were street gangs, the feds would be all up in here, but b/c these gangs have badges and are in LASD...impunity!

At least 18 deputy gangs we know of. It's sad we have to deal with these gangs.

Villanueva would never shut these #LASDgangs down. These are HIS gangs. He didn't just learn about them. He's known about them for years.

We must stop these deputy gangs. If we don't, they'll keep roaming our streets, terrorizing our communities, killing our children.

There's a lot more Helen said; we'll expound on her comments later.

@LACountyCOC chair Rubin is saying they asked Villanueva to meet with them on #LASDgangs, and he refused. He said he's done it once and he's done talking. One and done.

COC is now considering another subpoena.

Criminal law scholar Sean Kennedy and Loyola Law students now speaking on their report on 50 years of #LASDgangs.

It's impossible to deny deputy gangs.

As Helen said earlier, "Everybody knows about these gangs."

lmu.app.box.com/s/ho3rp9qdbmn9…

For example, East L.A. "Banditos" have "OGs" and "shot callers" who target young Latinos as "enforcers," and "tax" women trainees with sexual favors and retaliate vs. deputies who resist, incl. beating them and putting dead rats at their homes.
cbsnews.com/news/anthony-v…

Compton "Executioners" whose symbol is a skull w/ a Nazi helmet have "998 parties" to celebrate deputies who did the shooting and having them inked. They submit "ghost gun reports," falsely claiming they saw a gun as justification for using force.
latimes.com/california/sto…

We've heard again and again that these #LASDgangs are just harmless groups, intramural sports teams.

These aren’t “cliques” or “subgroups” or even “secret societies.”

These are paramilitary agents who systematically kill community members with impunity and secrecy

We’ve known of #LASDgangs for years.

Many bodies dating back at least to the 1992 Kolts Commission that looked into LASD have come to the same conclusion. Deputy gangs are real.

And the federal court itself has confirmed that these deputy gangs are white supremacist, neo-Nazi

After terrorizing communities of color, dehumanizing, even killing Black and Latinx folks, #LASDGangs like the Banditos and Executioners relentlessly harass families who speak out against them to demand accountability.

These are occupying forces with a "Us vs. Them" mentality.

Deputy gangs have led to escalating use of force. Black and brown folks living in the #LASDgang “turf” experience more heavy-handed, aggressive policing, incl. racial profiling and use of force. In the past 5 yrs, out of 133 shootings by LASD, 80% of victims were Black & Latinx

The majority of LASD shootings in past 5 yrs were by stations riddled with #LASDgangs:
1) East L.A. (Banditos): 20
2) Compton (Executioners): 12
3) Century (Regulators, Spartans): 12
4) South LA (Grim Reapers): 11
5) Lancaster and Palmdale (Cowboys and Rattlesnakes): 10 and 8

Here’s the chart showing the influence of #LASDgangs correspond with escalating shootings—and killings—of community members, again predominantly Black and Latinx.

Deputy gangs have permeated the ranks and management of stations in East L.A., South L.A., and the Antelope Valley.

Because of non-disclosure agreements (NDAs), we can't know the full scope of the crisis.

@LACountyBOS should prohibit protective orders and NDAs in settlement agreements w/ employee plaintiffs or lawsuits filed by Angelenos regarding law enforcement misconduct, esp. #LASDgangs

Now @priscilla_ocen lifting up the conflict of interest at the County. How is it that Sean Kennedy and volunteer students got this 50-page Loyola Law report done in about 1 year, but the County-commissioned RAND study has been going on now for more than 2 YEARS?!?

Will the County really tell us the full scope of the crisis given all the increased liability the County will surely face when the truth comes to light around these #LASDgangs?

How many wrongful convictions (like Franky Carrillo's, who was framed by Lynwood Viking gang member)?

Sean Kennedy says membership in #LASDgangs must be disclosed. We need disclosure. Sunlight.

Ripple effect only grows while the County sits passively as its lawyers use NDAs to hide the nature and extent of this problem.

Bonner, former head of the D.E.A., is now discussing @LACountyCOC proposed policy on #LASDgangs.

The preamble briefly recounts the history of deputy gangs.

The policy seeks to discipline the participation, joining or soliciting to join deputy gangs.

file.lacounty.gov/SDSInter/bos/s…

Befuddling @LACountyCOC calls #LASDgangs "cliques" and can't get itself to call them for what they are: gangs!

In fact, this policy says: "A deputy clique...have
common or matching tattoos or use hand signals, and/or engage in other rituals and
behaviors similar to street gang."

Many powerful public comments.

#AnthonyVargas's aunt Valerie is now saying how coming onto the COC and hearing them calling these #LASDgangs as "cliques" is anxiety-inducing, infuriating. This is real. These deputy gangs kill real people. And then you talk about MET teams?

#PaulRea's grandmother Julie speaking next also saying these aren't so-called "cliques." Banditos #LASDgangs prospect Deputy Saavedra killed Paul. They force women deputies to provide sexual favors. They get brownie points for shooting people. Does this sound like cliques to you?

Now @BisHilarious speaking, calling out the policy for doing nothing about existing #LASDgang members, since the policy is only forward-looking. How does that make sense?

And why do you care more about lawsuits?

Everyone at LASD, they all participate in the cover-up.

#AnthonyVargas's aunt Stephanie Luna speaks now about how #Banditos prospects Deputies Rojas and Perez killed Anthony. Ever since, the family's faced relentless harassment in retaliation, incl. Rojas showing up at the Vargas home.

When will you take this crisis seriously?!?

Now @cerisecastle speaking on her 15-part series on #LASD gangs. Highlights:
- There are at least 18 gangs we know of. We've known for decades.
- They meet definition of street gangs.
- They've killed about 20 people of color we know of.
- Many promoted.

knock-la.com/tradition-of-v…

Sister Helen speaks powerfully about how 3000 Boys brutally beat and killed her son #JohnHorton.

She's sure John cried out for her just as #GeorgeFloyd cried out for his mother.

We need to eradicate #LASDgangs. We also need to dismantle the entire department.

.@andreskwon speaking about this being an all-out human rights crisis. These are paramilitary agents who terrorize, frame, brutalize, kill and maim our beloved family and community members with impunity and secrecy, and they go on to systematically harass grieving families.

We had a family forum led by families + @BLMLA @CentroCSO, when family after family recounted a disturbing pattern of harassment—a campaign of intimidation that seeks to chill their 1Am rights, retraumati families, inflict tremendous phycological and even physical harm...

...to the point of forcing many family members to flee the County, even move out of the State b/c they fear for their lives.

Supervisor Mitchell, who heard these stories from the families, likened the family harassment to public lynching.

la.streetsblog.org/2021/04/13/fam…

.@andreskwon says that in int’l human rights and refugee law and our own federal asylum law, these families could be considered "refugees," persecuted "on account of race,...membership in a particular social group, or political opinion."

The harassment is clearly persecution.