When phrase obtained out, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Division rumor mill sprang into motion. Some mentioned Joe Mendoza was a tough employee and deserved the coveted promotion. However others whispered that he sported the mark of a “deputy gang.”
And he did — however he doesn’t anymore.
“I obtained it lined up,” the newly minted chief informed The Instances, including: “I’m not a gang member. I’m a household man.”
On his higher arm the place Mendoza mentioned he as soon as had a Banditos brand — a bandolier-draped skeleton sporting a sombrero — he now sports activities a tattoo of St. Michael, the patron saint of regulation enforcement.
In an interview, Mendoza defined why he obtained the picture lined up: He noticed troubling headlines concerning the East L.A. Station clique’s dangerous habits and was embarrassed. So he determined to steer by instance.
“I’m occupied with altering the tradition,” he mentioned. “I need individuals to grasp how complicated this situation is, and the way good people who had a tattoo can nonetheless lead. As a result of I’m certain I’m not the one one on this place.”
Dangerous press, together with repeated lawsuits and criticism from oversight officers, seems to be pushing some formidable deputies to rethink their controversial ink. As well as, some see the tattoos representing so-called deputy gangs as a roadblock to development.
Apart from Mendoza, half a dozen different deputies and supervisors — most of whom requested to stay nameless as a result of they weren’t licensed to talk on the document — informed The Instances that they or deputies they knew have been contemplating getting ink eliminated or lined up.
Two deputies mentioned a minimum of one different high-ranking official had spoken about getting his tattoo lined. A 3rd deputy mentioned it was “only a matter of time” earlier than he had his personal ink eliminated or altered. And Undersheriff April Tardy, who final yr admitted to having what she described as a “station tattoo,” not too long ago mentioned she’d been excited about getting her Temple Station ink lined.
“At this level, I’ve not had my tattoo lined or modified,” she wrote in a textual content, “however I’m contemplating it.”
Though he’s not the primary to take away or cowl up a controversial tattoo, Mendoza’s change of coronary heart might be yet another sign of a sluggish shift contained in the Sheriff’s Division. That’s how Sheriff Robert Luna appears to see it.
When he ran for workplace, Luna vowed to crack down on deputy gangs. He held up Mendoza for example of a very good chief dedicated to displaying youthful deputies a distinct path ahead within the division.
“We’re conscious that he had a department-related tattoo, however we additionally acknowledge his open and trustworthy statements about denouncing deputy gangs, subgroups, and cliques,” Luna wrote in a press release. “As we transfer ahead in altering the Division tradition to eradicate deputy gangs, personnel that share their expertise can have nice affect on the long run technology of deputies.”
To Inspector Normal Max Huntsman, the county watchdog tasked with overseeing the division, rewarding deputies who take away or cowl tattoos looks as if an extended overdue change — however it isn’t sufficient.
“We nonetheless have an issue,” Huntsman mentioned, “so long as the Sheriff’s Division is secretive about alleged gang exercise and doesn’t totally examine it and establish all of the members.”
For many years, the division has been tormented by allegations about tattooed teams of deputies operating roughshod over sure stations and flooring of the jail. The teams have been the topic of lawsuits, oversight investigations, an FBI probe and repeated allegations of misconduct. Final yr, a Civilian Oversight Fee report urged Luna to ban the “most cancers” of deputy gangs.
“They create rituals that valorize violence,” the report mentioned, “reminiscent of recording all deputy-involved shootings in an official ebook, celebrating with ‘taking pictures events,’ and authorizing deputies who’ve shot a neighborhood member so as to add gildings to their widespread gang tattoos.”
The tattoos characteristic macabre imagery of skeletons and weapons and are sometimes sequentially numbered. They symbolize teams often called the Executioners, the Indians, the Rattlesnakes and the Reapers. Some of the well-known operates out of the East L.A. station and is usually often called the Banditos.
A number of former high officers — together with undersheriffs and chiefs of workers — have publicly admitted to having tattoos representing the teams, and earlier this yr an oversight report famous that “admitted members have [been] promoted to the very best ranges of the Sheriff’s Division.”
Up to now, some sheriffs have denied or downplayed the existence and affect of deputy gangs throughout the division. However when Luna took workplace in 2022, he reversed course and vowed to “eradicate” them. Since then, he’s repeatedly come underneath hearth for not appearing shortly or decisively sufficient to rout them out. However amongst different adjustments, his administration began asking questions on group membership and tattoos throughout promotional interviews for these in search of to enter the higher echelons of the division.
“Because the starting of my administration the query of any department-related tattoos has been requested within the interview portion of the promotional course of for the rank of captain and above, which has by no means been finished earlier than,” Luna mentioned in a press release. “Our division is not going to promote any personnel who’ve exhibited habits in keeping with regulation enforcement gang exercise as outlined in State regulation or Division coverage.”
However having a tattoo isn’t essentially disqualifying.
Members of the deputy gang often called the Executioners are alleged to sport tattoos of a cranium with Nazi imagery and an AK-47. Members of the Banditos are allegedly recognized for his or her matching tattoos of a skeleton outfitted with a sombrero, bandoleer and pistol.
(Workplace of Inspector Normal )
The kid of Mexican immigrants, Mendoza was the primary individual in his household born in Los Angeles. He spent most of his youth in East L.A., surrounded by violence. He watched his neighbors get swept up in a life that always led to jail or drug habit, or typically each. As a teen, he cherished enjoying baseball — and it was by way of the game that he met a coach whose love for his job as a deputy sheriff appeared inspiring.
Regardless of his father’s reservations about seeing his son go into regulation enforcement, Mendoza joined the Sheriff’s Division in 1992 and began patrolling the streets of East L.A. within the late Nineties.
On the time, he mentioned, loads of his colleagues wore gear with what he described as “station symbols” — together with the skeletal picture representing the Banditos.
“It was in every single place — it was on bumper stickers … it was on hats, it was on T-shirts, it was on the station wall,” he mentioned. “The best way it was then, it was the image of my station, and it was simply throughout me.”
At a well-liked annual relay race, he mentioned, even command workers sported shirts emblazoned with the picture. Mendoza didn’t consider the image as signifying a gang, a clique or perhaps a drawback.
“It didn’t look like something was incorrect,” he mentioned. “We have been all station household.”
Greater than twenty years in the past, Mendoza mentioned, he obtained his tattoo — quantity 56 — at a barbecue. He mentioned he didn’t know who else bore the identical tattoo, or whether or not the group included ladies in its ranks. And he mentioned that, if any of the opposite 55 tattooed deputies who got here earlier than him voted on whether or not he might get his ink, he wasn’t conscious of it. He didn’t affiliate the tattoo with dangerous habits and mentioned he didn’t condone or interact in misconduct, both throughout his time at East L.A. or since.
In 2008, Mendoza transferred out of the station. He finally turned the captain overseeing the division’s Murder Bureau, then moved as much as turn into a commander of the Detective Division.
As he climbed by way of the ranks, Mendoza mentioned, he didn’t sustain with all of the goings-on at his former station. However by the late 2010s he started seeing alarming tales within the information. At that time, the Banditos have been making headlines for his or her alleged involvement in an off-duty scuffle outdoors the Kennedy Corridor occasion house in 2018, when a number of Banditos allegedly attacked one other group of deputies. The battle sparked a prison investigation, oversight inquiries and a sprawling $80-million lawsuit that’s anticipated to go to trial this yr.
For Mendoza, the regular stream of stories protection struck a nerve.
“I had been gone from East L.A. for 16 years, and a few of the issues being mentioned, I didn’t know these individuals,” he mentioned. “However I examine it and I used to be embarrassed.”
Then, someday in 2022, he went on a trip and the sensation hit him once more, however more durable: “All people was taking their shirt off,” he mentioned, “and I used to be embarrassed.”
Not lengthy after Luna took workplace, Mendoza interviewed for a promotion from commander to chief — the highest-ranking position within the Detective Division, overseeing the bureaus that deal with fraud, main crimes, narcotics, murder and extra. At that time, he nonetheless had his tattoo, and he didn’t get the promotion.
A couple of months later, he mentioned, he had the picture lined. And when he interviewed once more for a promotion, he obtained it.
“I listened to Sheriff Luna and his imaginative and prescient of taking this group ahead and altering the tradition,” he mentioned. “And after I communicate to youthful deputies, I communicate to them concerning the unfavourable connotations and the general public notion and the way we have to work with our communities, and they should belief us and admittedly we have to belief them.”
Although Mendoza’s choice to cowl his ink comes amid an obvious shift in sentiment towards the controversial photographs, this isn’t the primary time division officers have spoken publicly about eliminating their tattoos.
At a listening to in March, former Undersheriff Tim Murakami testified underneath oath that he as soon as sported the tattoo of one other East L.A. subgroup, an alleged deputy gang often called the Cavemen. When he obtained the picture inked on his physique within the Eighties, he mentioned, it had signified laborious work and “station satisfaction.” About 5 years in the past, he mentioned, he had it lined or eliminated — he didn’t specify which — in gentle of “unfavourable publicity.”
Two years earlier than Murakami’s sworn admission, Larry Del Mese, former Sheriff Alex Villanueva’s chief of workers for a time, equally testified that he had his Lennox Station Grim Reaper tattoo eliminated round 2018 or 2019.
“It served me no objective from the day I obtained it, however it had clearly turn into a legal responsibility,” Del Mese mentioned.
Some deputies informed The Instances the shift started even earlier than that — underneath the administration of former Sheriff Jim McDonnell, who held the workplace till 2018. It accelerated lately amid elevated media scrutiny and Civilian Oversight Fee hearings on deputy gangs.
“It appears to be a difficulty that isn’t going away,” one tattooed deputy mentioned. “Extra individuals are apprehensive concerning the chance Luna gained’t promote you if you’re recognized to have one. It appears inevitable the exterior stigma will turn into an inside stigma as a result of strain on Luna for change.”
However some deputies have been skeptical. One mentioned that having a tattoo eliminated could be seen as “nearly a betrayal” of others who’ve it. One other mentioned elimination could be tantamount to an admission of wrongdoing and that not all tattooed subgroups truly interact in misconduct.
The county watchdog shared that sense of skepticism — however for various causes.
For years, Huntsman has been urging the division to develop a listing of suspected deputy gang members and to implement a stronger coverage banning membership within the teams. Final yr, he despatched a letter to the Sheriff’s Division demanding that a number of dozen deputies present up for questioning about their very own tattoos and others who’ve them. The union filed a lawsuit, and the case has been tied up in courtroom since.
This yr, Huntsman’s workplace issued a sequence of stories criticizing the division for failing to totally examine the secretive subgroups or make any actual effort to establish all their members — even amid revelations a few newly uncovered group working out of the Metropolis of Business Sheriff’s Station. In that occasion, two deputies who allegedly bore Business Stations Indians tattoos have been fired. However Huntsman faulted the division for failing to totally query them concerning the group and its different potential members.
“Regardless of a brand new California regulation geared toward addressing regulation enforcement gangs, and a brand new administration,” oversight officers wrote within the report, “the Sheriff’s Division has, to this point, by no means undertaken an investigation geared toward figuring out each member of any subgroup or figuring out whether or not any of these teams interact in a sample of conduct that violates the regulation or Division coverage.”
Lawyer Bert Deixler — who served as particular counsel for the Civilian Oversight Fee hearings on deputy gangs — nonetheless lauded the shifting views on subgroup tattoos.
“My sense is that any step away from a signifier that one belongs to a deputy gang is a step in the appropriate path,” he mentioned. “It’s a sign that the tradition maybe is altering — altering slowly, however any change is nice.”
