Six years in the past, a plumber discovered the decomposing physique of Raymundo Rivera inside a pillar at a Winco grocery store in Lancaster. On the time, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Division officers mentioned the 35-year-old appeared to have fled throughout a visitors cease and will have “gotten inside there and gotten right down to try to cover from the deputies after which couldn’t get out.”
However based on a lawsuit filed Wednesday in L.A. Superior Court docket, former Deputy Aaron Tanner later boasted that he and different deputies had chased Rivera — and that they knew he’d fallen into the pillar. As a substitute of making an attempt to avoid wasting him, the go well with says, “the deputies left him there to die, and made false experiences that they misplaced monitor of the suspect within the pursuit.”
The allegations got here to mild this week when Tanner’s ex-girlfriend filed a $5-million lawsuit accusing him of bodily abusing her for greater than two years. The lady, who’s recognized solely as Jane Doe in courtroom filings, additionally alleged the ex-lawman bragged about being a “shot-caller,” or chief, in a deputy gang often known as the Rattlesnakes. In line with the go well with, he additionally threatened to produce other members of the group “deal with her” if she instructed anybody about his alleged abuse.
Tanner couldn’t be reached for remark Wednesday, and it was not clear whether or not he had an lawyer. State data present he has not been employed by the Sheriff’s Division since late final 12 months.
Along with elevating a litany of different claims about Tanner — together with an on-duty incident by which he allegedly lower off a lifeless horse’s leg — the go well with additionally describes repeated misconduct involving different members of the Rattlesnakes. In line with the criticism, Tanner instructed his ex the group successfully controls the Lancaster Sheriff’s Station and that its members allegedly intimidate different deputies, make false arrests and body folks. Till now, the group has up to now garnered little scrutiny in comparison with extra infamous deputy teams working in East L.A. and Compton.
The go well with, filed by lawyer Vincent Miller, accuses the county of permitting deputy gangs to persist regardless of guarantees to reform.
The Sheriff’s Division didn’t instantly supply touch upon the case.
The soured relationship that sparked the lawsuit started in March 2020, when Jane Doe started relationship Tanner. The deputy allegedly instructed her he was an influential member of a “gang” referred to as the Rattlesnakes. In line with the go well with, he instructed her that members of the group would withhold backup on different deputies’ patrol calls “to hazard their lives,” write false police experiences and have interaction in different “unlawful conduct.”
However the crux of the claims middle on Tanner’s alleged abuse and “sadistic tendencies.” Within the 17-page submitting, Doe accuses the deputy of repeatedly strangling her till she was unconscious, allegedly telling her he wanted to do it to keep up “dominance” over her. In line with the go well with, Doe didn’t report Tanner to authorities as a result of she was afraid of retaliation by different members of the Rattlesnakes.
“Jane Doe noticed how highly effective Tanner and the Rattlesnakes had been, and the way they managed the Lancaster Station,” the go well with continues, providing for instance an incident that began when Tanner allegedly instructed his girlfriend to comply with behind him in her automobile. He drove at a excessive velocity, the go well with says, then slammed on the brakes so instantly that her automobile crashed into his.
When a bystander referred to as 911, Tanner allegedly referred to as dispatch and instructed them to not ship assist.
In late 2022, Doe broke off her relationship with Tanner. Afterward, she alleges, he and different Rattlesnakes members stalked her at work, “terrorizing and intimidating her.” Then in 2023, the go well with says, the division started investigating Tanner and officers contacted Doe about an unrelated incident she allegedly witnessed throughout an unauthorized ridealong with him.
Nonetheless, Doe was reluctant to speak as a result of she suspected one of many investigating sergeants was a member of the Rattlesnakes and may inform her ex what she would say. Nonetheless, the go well with says, the division ended up opening an inner prison investigation into Tanner. Two different deputies allegedly instructed the division’s inner crime investigators that Tanner had been withholding backup from different deputies and that they’d reported it to the station captain.
“After they reported the withholding of again up,” the go well with says, “the captain shortly moved to cowl up the deputy gang exercise on the station, telling the deputies to by no means inform him about this once more and to ‘get the f— out of my workplace.’”
Along with the interior prison probe, the go well with says Tanner was the goal of a number of administrative investigations, together with one incident by which he allegedly sawed off the leg of a lifeless horse with a pocketknife and made a trainee maintain the leg. The go well with doesn’t make clear when the incident supposedly passed off, what the deputy allegedly did with the indifferent leg or why it was eliminated within the first place.
Now, the division’s probe is “wrapping up,” the go well with says, and investigators are “reportedly assured the DA will indict Tanner for the violence dedicated towards Jane Doe and using his gang to intimidate the witness.” He has additionally been given a discover of termination, the go well with says.
The district lawyer’s workplace didn’t instantly reply to a query about whether or not prosecutors have already been requested to assessment any circumstances involving the previous deputy.
For many years, the Sheriff’s Division has been suffering from allegations about gangs of deputies operating roughshod over sure stations and flooring of the jail. The teams are recognized by monikers corresponding to the Indians, the Vikings and the Regulators, and their members usually bear the identical sequentially numbered tattoos with symbols linking them to particular stations.
A number of the teams — such because the Compton Executioners and the East L.A. Banditos — have grow to be frequent targets of oversight investigations, lawsuits and unbiased experiences.
However except for the allegations on this week’s lawsuit, there’s comparatively little recognized concerning the Lancaster group. When the Civilian Oversight Fee’s particular counsel launched a 70-page report on deputy gangs final 12 months, the Rattlesnakes acquired one fleeting point out. Two years earlier, a 230-page county-commissioned Rand Corp. report on the teams referenced the Rattlesnakes simply thrice, describing them as one of some tattooed teams that didn’t look like actively including members.
That very same 12 months, a 54-page report written by researchers at Loyola Regulation College described the group as “a deputy gang working out of the Palmdale and Lancaster stations within the Antelope Valley.”
The report described the group’s tattoo as a cranium and a snake, nevertheless it didn’t record any suspected members or allegations of misconduct. The report mentioned it wasn’t clear whether or not the tattoos had been sequentially numbered.
But it seems the Rattlesnakes have been on the federal authorities’s radar since a minimum of 2013, when a U.S. DOJ report raised issues a few tattooed group of deputies within the Antelope Valley. The report detailed the findings of an investigation into allegations of racially discriminatory policing practices within the space in northern Los Angeles County.
“Some Antelope Valley deputies put on tattoos or share paraphernalia with an intimidating cranium and snake image as a mark of their affiliation with the Antelope Valley stations,” the report mentioned. “Although there are various interpretations of what these tattoos symbolize, they supply an plain visible illustration of the gulf between deputies and the neighborhood and are an unlucky reminder of LASD’s historical past of symbols related to problematic deputy habits.”
On the time, Sheriff’s Division officers “assured” the U.S. DOJ they had been making an attempt to suppress the “cranium and snake picture.” However federal authorities famous of their report that the photographs had been nonetheless “extensively seen all through the Antelope Valley.” The report inspired the Sheriff’s Division to take stronger measures to get deputies to cease displaying such “divisive” insignia.
Following the report, in 2015 the county entered right into a settlement settlement with the federal authorities, promising to appropriate a few of the policing issues authorities had recognized.
Greater than a decade later, this week’s lawsuit accuses the county of failing to take significant motion to rein in tattooed deputy subgroups within the Antelope Valley or throughout the county. The criticism outlines a laundry record of wrongdoing linked to different tattooed teams, together with the Banditos, which function out of the East L.A. Sheriff’s Station.
The go well with says the teams’ members have been disciplined for “stealing cash from residents, destroying proof, writing false police experiences, mendacity in the middle of investigations, recklessly killing youngsters, and intimidating witnesses.”
The go well with asks for cash for lawyer’s charges, curiosity and damages, together with from extreme emotional misery.
