Morning. This podcast contains explicit language and details acts of violence. Listener discretion is advised. A skull, a smoking gun, and red eyes. Those are images people usually associate with something bad, something evil, But for some inside the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, that imagery is seen as a sign of loyalty to a lethal brotherhood, a unifier. In two thousand seven, Deputy Curtis Sykes joined the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department Gang Enforcement Task Force or GET, at the Palmdale station. The GET team is part of Operations Safe Streets, the department's Gang Bureau, which is ironically a place where lots of deputy gang members end up working. Sykes was recommended to the unit by Deputy Douglas Parkhurst. Sykes and Parkhurst worked together before at the North County Correctional Facility. The duo became partners on Palmdale's GET Team. Court doc huments described the two as quote like brothers, they quote developed a strong bond based upon mutual respect and trust that they still share to this day. In two thousand nine, Sykes moved to the Compton GET Unit and worked with Deputy Steve Vargas the two also got close and decided to get matching tattoos. They worked with a Pico rivera tattoo artist, and came up with a design. The skull with glowing red eyes holding a smoking revolver. There's a bandana wrapped around the top of the skull with the letters O S S for Operation Safe Streets. Behind the skull are two playing cards, an ace, and an eight of spades, also known as a dead man's hand. Each tattoo is numbered and placed on the lower leg. This was the birth of the jump Out Boys, and this is a tradition of violence a history of deputy gangs inside the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. The jump Out Boys were incredibly organized. They kept records about the gang, how it functioned, how someone became a member, and how they had a so called black book listing all the people they've killed. This has been reported on by the l A Times and l A Weekly. Here's the meaning behind their tattoo from their records, which I asked an actor to read. The jump Out Boys was an idea that was thought of by the first few members. The name jump Out Boys was given to us in Compton by various gang members who we all at contact with on a daily basis. The red eyes will be on all jump Out Boy tattoos. If they've got of smoking, that means that the member has been involved in at least one shooting. The number you were given means you are part of an organized brotherhood that follows a structure in order to compile and review the members who are entered into a booklet. They even had the blessing of higher ups like Paul Tanaka to operate outside of the law. To quote work in the gray Area, Elias D personnel engaged in activity that was plainly illegal. Here's the gang's mission red verbatim. The mission and origin of the jump Out Boys is to recruit real people whose work ethic is above all others anywhere. Jump Out Boys are alpha dogs who think and act like the wolf, but never become the wolf. They understand where the line needs to be crossed and cross back. They need to work hard, they need to get guns, they need to take bad people to jail, and sometimes they need to do the things they don't want to do in order to get where they want to be. In conclusion, they need people like us who gets there first. And leave last. Jump out. Boys are not afraid to get their hands dirty and without any disgrace, dishonor or hesitation. We are committed to each other, committed to our job, and committed to excellence INN The gang began recruiting and the tattoo gained popularity among deputies. Sykes hit up his old partner Parkhurst, who was working on Catalina Island. He asked Parkhurst if he was up for the skull and revolver tattoo. Parkhurs was quote honored to be asked since he was no longer a member of GET, and said yes to getting inked. Deputy Julio Martinez worked GET at Compton Station between two thousand nine and two thousand ten with Deputy Ronnie Perez. Around two thousand ten, Martinez transferred to the unit in East l A. And briefly partnered with Deputy Anthony Paiez. Martinez noticed Vargas's tattoo while he was working out at the East Los Angeles A station jim In. Martinez told his partner Ronnie Perez about the design. Parkhurst, Martinez, Paez, and Perez were later tattooed together on the same day. Deputy Jason Lanska saw the design and received the tattoo About a week later. After getting their tattoos, the jump Out Boys quickly implemented their mission of quote crossing the line. On August, Martinez and Paez claimed in their reports that they witnessed a drug deal in front of a marijuana dispensary while they were on patrol. Luckily, local media outlet l A Weekly obtained video surveillance of what actually happened. In the video, a man later identified as Antonio Rhodes is seen exiting the Superior Herbal Health dispensary. He's followed by a security guard, Dante Benton. The two bump fist Martinez said that the fist bump was actually a drug transaction. He also wrote that Antonio saw the officers and reached for a gun. Martinez says he chased Antonio into the dispensary, but the door locked after Antonio got inside. Martinez says he demanded the door be opened and saw Antonio stashing a gun through a window, but the tape shows something else. Antonio goes back into the dispensaries display room, returns a bag of marijuana to the cashier, and stands against a wall. Then Martinez and Paez come into the dispensary and order everyone to leave. After the store clears out, Paez reaches into a display room drawer and plants the black handgun on a chair. Martinez wrote in his report that after a quote protective sweep that he and Piez uncovered an unregistered gun along with three others that belonged to security guards of the dispensary. The deputies arrested Antonio and charged him with possessing an unregistered weapon. However, the gun placed into evidence was chrome. Remember the one on the video was black. Eventually, the charges against Antonio were dropped. Other people outside of the gang were starting to notice the jump Out Boys. Robert Rifkin, who was Captain of Operations Safe Streets Bureau at this point, spotted the tattoo on Deputy Jason Lanska at a golf tournament in He asked Lieutenant Henry Sauceto to investigate. Several months later, in February two thousand twelve, Sauceto and Sergeant Patrick Tapia opened up the trunk of Curtis Sykes and Stephen Vargas squad car. Inside they found a fitness magazine with four pages of an article titled police gang discovered stuffed in it. Tucked next to that article was the jump Out Boys Manifesto. Tapia and Sauce took the documents they discovered to their lieutenant, who instructed Sauceto to inform the get team that this conduct was unacceptable. That message didn't appear to have any impact on the jump Out Boys. They kept up what they were doing, and worse, just a few weeks later, they killed someone. On March seventh, two thousand, twelve, two year old Arturo Cabrales was hanging out at his house with his friend Freddy Solis. As he was standing in the yard, he saw a group of deputies harassing his uncle. The deputies who included jump Out Boy Anthony Paez, we're trying to get into the home without a warrant. Attorney on Bertuzar represented the Cabrales family. He said, the deputies swarmed our Touro and his uncle in their yard. Pious and the other deputies rolled up on him. They went up a one way street on the opposite direction and pulled up on them. So we called the jump Off Boys. It jumped out on them when they were talking Umbertso says the deputies were watching our Touro. They had evidence that he had been involved in a lot of drug cells, like even before the incident happened. And at the time, this is before marijuana was legal, and this was near the Watts Towers and near the area where a lot of drugs are being sold. So I believe that my client was involved in the marijuana distribution. They were even out of their territory when they went there, out of their territory, meaning the deputies were outside of the area they were supposed to be patrolling. When he wrote up on him. They wrote up in a way like demanding him to let him in, and he said, no, you can't come in unless you have a warrant. Pious are said, I don't need a fucking warranty like that they tried to force and he said you can't come in, you can't come in. And then when you realize you were going to come in no matter what, he ran and pies went in and they shot him at the back. Six time. Our Touro's family filed a lawsuit against l A County, claiming the deputies didn't get our tour medical attention after he was shot. They allege the deputies let him die bleeding out alone on the pavement. As our Tour was dying, the deputies shut down the area and did a raid. They found a gun, and they found a big scale, which just big scales that they used to measure marijuana, not even a Graham absolutely zero marijuana. He had a four year old son that was raised without a father. No, because they shot him and killed him and executed him, you know, for sawing marijuana, for not doing anything wrong other than running away. He didn't want to get arrested. That's why I threw the gun. Didn't want to get caught with a gun, and he stead he ends up getting shot in the back multiple times and actually murdered. Jump Out boys Curtis Sykes and Stephen Vargas responded to the scene. Martinez showed up too, and allegedly recovered a gun on the other side of the homes fence. L A s D homicide detectives concluded in their reports that Our tourro turned and pointed a gun at Paez, who then shot him in self defense, but the medical examiner said that was impossible. Witness accounts also indicate that our Touro was unarmed when he was shot. There was a witness that we had to set they heard a gun, They heard the noise of a gun fall from over a fence and ended up on the floor in their yard, and when they shot him, that was after that had happened. So clearly was unarmed when he was shot, and I was able to establish he had thrown the gun over a fence before he got shot, so he knew he didn't have a gun in his hand, and they just still shot him in the backage he was running. The case was eventually settled. The family received one point five million dollars, with taxpayers on the hook for the award, along with attorney costs. In April two thousand twelve, the jump Out Boys became quote concerned about changes within l A. S D. According to court documents, Martinez tried to rally some deputies to sit out the department's annual Baker to Vegas charity run, but they changed their minds and participated during the run. The l A. Times published a story about the gang and their tattoos. The article also claimed the group was the subject of a probe internal affairs. Interviewed twenty one GET deputies about the gang. Five deputies said they were asked to get the tattoo. Deputy Chad Sessman said he was quote honored to be asked because he quote considered the deputies as hard working deputies who go out and take bad guys to jail. The probe uncovered several instances of the gang and its existence. Parkhurst sent an email to Mike Zalo, a former GET member, asking Zalo to get the jump Out Boys tattoo. Perez sent a photo to his girlfriend displaying his tattoo on his lower leg. Deputy Martinez sent a photo to a group text with several deputies of multiple l a s d. Brass including then under Sheriff Tanaka, flashing what looks like gang signs and showing off tattoos. The Times reported that Captain Bob Rifkin gathered the jump Out Boys and told them that the creed being exposed brought shame on the department, but no one would be fired for it. But according to internal documents, witnesses said Rifkin encouraged them to quote peak over or quote bend the line to get results, echoing Tanaka's work in the Gray Area. Speech Rifkin asked Martinez, a shop caller, and the jump Out Boys to look into the gang. Rifkin met with Vargas, who identified Deputies Lanska, Paiez, Parkhurst, Perez, Sykes, and himself as members. In May two thousand twelve, they were all relieved of duty and put on administrative leave. The following year, they were discharged from the department. The seven deputies all filed appeals to get their jobs back. Meanwhile, Internal Affairs was taking a second look at the dispensary raid Martinez and Paez carried out in twenty eleven. They found that Martinez lied in his report. In Martinez and Paiez were criminally charged for their actions in the dispensary raid. They were both hit with felony counts of obstructing justice, perjury, and filing a false police report. The next year, the Civil Service Commission, who decides whether county employees were justly fired or not, voted to overturn the discharges against Lansca, Perez, and Parkhurst. They had their discharges reduced to thirty days suspensions. That's not unusual. The commission usually sides with Deputies Sykes and Vargas, filed their own cases to reclaim their jobs. Chief James Lopez, who discharged the group, testified that allowing the jump Out Boys to keep their jobs would be quote devastating to the public trust. But Lansca, Perez, and park Hurst won their cases in seventeen rounded to the nearest thousand, they were awarded payments of one hundred and three thousand dollars, one hundred and sixty three thousand dollars, and one hundred and nine seven thousand dollars, all funded by taxpayers. In the Civil Service Commission recommended that Anthony Paez, who killed our to Ro cabrals and lied about planting guns at the dispensary, be rehired. In Martinez pled guilty to falsifying police reports, which by then had been reduced to a misdemeanor. He was sentenced to three hundred hours of community service. Because of his plea, the charges against Piez were dropped. Once that was done, the deputies filed civil suits to have their suspensions from the Sheriff's department removed. Piez's termination was reduced to only a fifteen days suspension in September. In a hearing on July, Piez's petition to work within the department again was granted. He also won back pay with interest. Here's attorney on Bertoguizar. There's clear evidence he planted a gun. There was video evidence showing that he planted a gun under dispensary. Criticulate arrest the guy at the marijuana dispensary. It was just and they broke the cameras surveillance cameras, except they forgot that there was They didn't know there was one other camera. That guy that on the dispensary waited till he got out of jail. He was pulled like ten months in the Ali County jail. When he got out, he came forward with that video and that's what the Dean unraveled about what they did. But they still rehired him. They still rehired Anthony Pious, which is just unbelievable. The jump Out Boys are just some of the many deputies known to be in a deputy gang and allowed to work in the department. Sheriff Leebaka had resigned after his botched attempt to block an FBI investigation that landed him with a federal indictment and later a conviction. He was replaced by interim sheriff Jim Scott, then Jim McDonald. After an election a new leader didn't stop the deputy gangs in the department. They continued to grow, but a new gang had formed at the Century Station, the Spartans. Brian Pickett's relationship with cops mirrored the experiences of many people of color getting pulled over, being questioned on the curb without cause, that kind of stuff. He still had a successful football career despite the harassment, and played for the University of Texas at al Paso. It wasn't just playing football that he loved. He loved coaching children too, especially his own young sons. He had plenty of experience mentoring kids, starting with helping his younger sisters with their homework. Throughout childhood. He was close with his girlfriend to Mike Gilbert and her young son. To my says, Brian was very involved with the kids. He read with the boys and built them a playhouse in the yard. He had a passion for music too. He was a skilled rapper, discussing police brutality, his faith, and the importance of family. On December, Brian's third son was born. Just nine days later, Brian was killed by deputies. On January six, deputies Edward martine Us and Ryan roth Rock responded to a family disturbance call. According to a district attorney report, Brian had been acting strange that day. His mom, Tammy, says she talked about it with her daughter that particular to day it seemed a little different, and Burnette was like, Mom, I don't know why Brian is like so hike today like And I was like, Ryan, are you okay? And he just kept rapid. Every time you would talk to him. He would rap to us in a song. Brian was cooking food on the stove and almost let it burn. His girlfriend scolded him for not paying attention. It was around nine o'clock at night, so finally he just went in the bathroom, closed the door, blast the music of Real, Real Loud, and I was like, no, I have to go to work in the morning. Just you know, we're knocking on the door. He's not answering the door. So finally he came out, and then him and Brnnett continue to argue with one another, and I was like, Brian, you're not gonna be able to stay in his house and do this music. She got to go to work. I got to go to school and it just became what we know, he wasn't gonna get any sleep, and so I asked, and I was like, well, did you smoke something? Yeah, he smoked some weat but we don't make you act like that. But he just was acting different. It was a different how he was moving. He was in the bathroom the whole time. I asked him to turn the music down and he turned to back up. So me and Bernette we sat in the living room and she was like, Mom, you have to do something. And I said, well, they told me that they would come and get him and take him to a psychological evaluation if I called them. The family had interactions with the police before concerning Brian. He struggled with his mental health and Tammy called them in the past for help. Ryan had been violently committed and tasered by deputies the year before when he was taken in for a mental health evaluation. The police had been to my house several times through Brian's depression and what we understand his illness now we didn't understand then. He was on a cycle up and down. Sometimes he's very very happy. Sometimes he's laughing and joking and then sometimes he said, and he depressed. When the deputies arrived that evening, he was in the bathroom rapping to himself. A deputy told Tammy what was going to happen. He was like, Okay, we're gonna go in there and talk to him. If he doesn't want to go, we're gonna have to like handcuff them, and we'll try to make him leave. And all you can hear is bumbling boots rumbling in the house, and then all of a sudden, you heard this loud and then it was just quiet. I mean, Brannette was sitting there like what's going on? Like why is he not rapping? Why is he not talking anymore? Deputies Renee bar Again, Ryan roth Rock, Miguel Ruiz and Edward Martinez went into the bathroom and knocked Brian to the floor. Once Brian was down, the deputies tazered him repeatedly. The deputies hog tied Brian and dragged him into the living room. Pools of blood gathered around his head. The deputies did not provide medical attention, according to witness testimony. They came out and they started drilling me more questions. We need to know if he was on any drugs. He said, I did everything, But he's a jokester like that, like I never know. I tested him before as far as like to see if he had drugs in his system, because that's a thing that I would do in my house, so you can stay at my house. But what I feel like they were trying to do is to get my attention off my son. So all I saw it was them like his hands was handcuffed behind his back, and they like drug him. They just drug him and laid him on the living room floor and we're standing at the door, and I was like, okay, so what's happening, Like why is he not talking? I was like, Oh, he's okay, he's okay. And then all I can see is like this phone and like some blood like coming out of his mouth, and I was like, he's not okay. They didn't do CPR, they didn't try to assess his vital signs or anything. And then within maybe another ten minutes, the ambulance came and start asking me the same questions and what kind of drugs he did? What did he do? And and they asked anybody could do CPR, Nobody did CPR? Why did anybody try to save my son. Why did anybody try to help him? Why Why would you just telling us to go outside, it's gonna be okay. But we stood right there at the door and he he was not movie. The family filed a civil lawsuit, which was settled in March of this year after seven years of litigation. Because one of Brian's sons was not his biological child, attorneys for Los Angeles County argued that the boy was not entitled to any money. The family took the fight to the Court of Appeals and one setting a new precedent for parents across California. It's one of the rare times that a change that can help families has come out of a police killing. But this doesn't change that Bryant Pickett was killed by deputies and his death did nothing to stop violence at the hands of deputy gangs. Just four months after Brian's death, deputies affiliated with the Spartans killed another man in South l A. Deputy J. Brown started out brutalizing people at Men's Central Jail with the three thousand and two thousand Boys. He was alleged to be one of their affiliates. In two thousand ten, he broke twenty two year old Christopher Lee Wilder's jaw. Brown attacked Christopher, punching him in the face repeatedly. Christopher was only inside Twin Towers Correctional Facility for a total of seventeen hours. A jury later awarded him over eighty thousand dollars funded by taxpayers. Just a few years later, in fourteen, Brown's violence poured into the streets. He shot and killed Johnny Martinez. Johnny was having a mental health crisis. We talked about the incident in an earlier episode. Sometimes you would think and get paranoid that people were coming after him. That's Ryan Casey, the Martinez family attorney. He says that when Deputy Jason Zabela and four other deputies, including Brown, arrived, they ignored names who tried to explain what was going on. Johnny had a small steak knife in his hands and laid it on the ground when asked, but the deputies still tazard and pepper sprayed him. Brown, Zabola and two other deputies fired thirties six shots at Johnny, killing him. Zabola has tattoos linking him to the regulators and cowboys, deputy gangs. Ryan Casey says that tattoos came up in the case. We did have a lot of evidence come up in the case regarding tattoos that are affiliated with gangs being on or potentially on the deputies that were involved in the in the shootings, and that these were linked historically to our should say, potentially to deputy gangs or clicks that were associated with high levels of excessive force and violence. In that particular case, It's hard to say whether or not there was a causal or related sort of link, but it was very interesting because they were very very resistance on letting us get into any of the evidence regarding tattoos regarding gang affiliation. We had to file many motions to compel production of that information with the court because they were instructing their clients not to answer. Jay Brown is alleged to be an affiliate of the Spartans, the younger generation of the regulators. His violent acts on the streets of South l A were just getting started. Tashawan Gaither was walking through the streets of South l A on the night of April tenth, in the midst of a mental health crisis. He thought someone was after him. I spoke to his attorney, Eric Vealezuela. He said that Tashaun tried to hide from the hallucinations by going inside of a toe yard. As the gate shut, one of the cars had the keys in the ignition and he climbed in the lots. Employees saw Tashaun and you another car to block him in as they called deputies. The first two that showed up shot pepper balls into the car Tashaun was in. Then Deputy J. Brown and two others showed up. They shot pepper balls at the car again, everyone except for Brown, he used a gun. All the security footage of the shooting was taken by the Sheriff's department, who says they were unable to retrieve anything from the files. Valenzuela says that the officers accounts of the shooting were contradictory to They settled the case for seventy two thousand, five hundred taxpair dollars, but that didn't mean the case was a slam dunk. Tashaun shooting is a great example of how district attorneys across the United States used the cops words against yours when they shoot you. In The U. S. Supreme Court ruled in Heck v. Humphrey, establishing the Heck doctrine. Because of that case, you cannot file a civil rights lawsuit for police brutality if you've entered a plea for any charges resulting from the incident. So because Tashaun had already entered a guilty plea of assault with a deadly weapon on a police officer, his claims of excessive force could be jeopardized in the civil case. Vealenezuela told me that district attorneys are complicit in police brutality because of action like this. In his experience, he has seen Day's charge people excessively if they threatened to sue, but promise to release them from custody if they plead guilty. The Spartans were groomed and abetted by Paul Tanaka's preachings to work in the gray area. Tanaka was gone by, but his policy of not charging deputies for their crimes continued and people continued to be killed. Twenty three year old Christian Medina was standing on a sidewalk in the Florence neighborhood of Los Angeles on the morning of sixteen. He made a nine one one call at four am from a pay phone. He told the operator that someone was getting beat up with a gun. He said the suspect was wearing a hoodie and shorts, which is what Christian was also wearing. Deputies Renee bar Again, one of the deputies who killed Brian Pickett and Jay Brown, responded to the call. They saw a Christian matching the description. They show up. He's still standing by the payphone that he called from, So I mean that should be right. Like the first thing you noticed. If he was going calling from and he stand next to the payphone, that's probably not the person that was holding the gun beating somebody up. And they started shooting at the first shots fired from inside inside the police vehicle, and then they get out of the cars and they continue shooting. He was shot thirteen times. He passed away at the scene. A county medical examiner said that several of the gunshot wounds were consistent with Christian laying on the ground. Christian struggled with severe depression, mental illness and was suicidal, according to his sister. The Medina family's lawyer, Jack Bazarkanian, said that christians mental health issues were well documented something that l a s D didn't handle well. Our police department in our Sheriff's department is a poor job of training people on how to handle themselves when there's somebody with a mental illness involved. Both deputies claimed that Christian had a gun and was in a quote shooting stance. Bazar Kanian doesn't believe this explanation is logical. If I'm standing somewhere but my back turned and I hear police sirens right behind me and like lights flashing at me, I mean, is it unreasonable to figure somebody might turn around and look at that, or if you're driving up to me from behind? What your sirens on flashing lights at me? And I turned around and put my hand up because the block let's say, the light from my eyes. Am I putting my hands up to shoot you? I mean, is that enough for you to start shooting at me from with from like inside your car? I think that's that's the saddest part that it was like nobody ever tried talking to him, like why don't you park your car a little bit further, use your intercom, try to speak to him. Nobody was in danger. You didn't see anybody around him. There was no gun or any weapon for that matter found on Christian. Absolutely none. Didn't even have a knife pocket knife. I mean, he didn't even have a plastic knife on him, And it could have been avoided like that. That I think that's the biggest takeaway. It could have very easily been avoided. The district attorney at the time, Jackie Lacey, concluded that the deputies had acted lawfully in self defense. George Gascon's d A office looked at the case this year. They came to the same conclusion. I'm not surprised. I mean, that's such a gray area. I think it would have been hard for the d d a's office to prove the reasonable doubt. There's a difference between civil cases and um criminal cases, and the burden of proof is is a lot higher to criminal case. A civil case, we just have to we just have to be a little bit more believable than another guy, right, like the scale, and the scale of the scale tips a little bit in our favorite than we can win. And in a criminal case beyond reasonable doubt, which is much higher burden of proof. So I think it was it would probably been a tough case for them to win. And Medina's family filed a lawsuit against l A County, which was settled in for six hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Taxpayers footed the bill. On August around seven pm, two deputies with the Century Station's summer violent crime Enforcement Team. We're driving their patrol car near Nickerson Gardens. Dead beat Ryan roth Rock and his partner pulled up to a car parked in the wrong direction. Thirty four year old Kenneth Lewis was standing near the vehicle. He ran away through a housing complex and fell. Roth Rock claims Kenneth pointed a gun at him. Then roth Rock says he shot Kenneth. As he fell to the ground bleeding, roth Rock shot him several more times. A deputy from Century Station later found a gun at the scene. Roth Rock claims that's the gun that Kenneth pointed at him. Kenneth died later at the hospital. He has survived by his son, who was three months old at the time of his death. His family settled with the county for just over one million dollars, funded by taxpayers. The county was additionally responsible for picking up the cost of everyone's legal fees. The next known deputy gang killing happened just two months later. They don't have very much institutional memory, and they seem to be a to relive their own mistake and they don't learn the lessons from before. And that's true of a lot of departments in actuality. And the first thing that they do is they try to sweep everything under the carpet. This is Jorge Gonzalez, attorney for the Senda House family. He represented the family after the killing of their son, twenty year old Ricardo Senda House Jr. Sadly, Jorge passed away in March of this year. This is from an interview I did with him about Junior's case. In his relationship with his father had broken down. His parents were separated and remarried with other people, and so you know, if he was behaving himself, he do with his mother. If not, Chian ship him off to be with his father, who lived down to content. The separation and change in home life exacerbated mental health issues for Junior. A courting to his father, he remained a good kid and a hard worker. Occasionally he had some behavior flare ups, but nothing wild fights with his dad or skipping school. Essentially, you know the worst thing that he has actually had actually done it smoked a little pot. Junior eventually landed in l A County's Dorothy Kirby Center. It's a lockdown fability and it has mostly people that are mentally ill. He was diagnosed with anti personality disorder. It just means it's the first thon who acted that thinking, doesn't think about the consequences of their actions. While at Dorothy Kirby Center, Junior was brutally beaten by another incarcerated youth. That person had been hospitalized forty three times for attacking other people. The family sued the county for not protecting their son. The case was settled. Once Junior was home, things were different. He retreated and self medicated. On November two, seventeen, there was another incident with Jr. He was armed with an assault rifle of some type and people in the neighborhood saw him in the backyards. Is like poking his head up over his pant. Somebody called it in. He was in his father's yard, not threatening anybody. Deputy Samuel Aldama, who was an alleged deputy gang member, and Deputy Edgar Quevas, responded to the call. Quevas told investigators that he heard and felt a gunshot go off around him. He called for assistance. Compton and Century Station deputies responded. An armored vehicle was dispatched. Soon helicopters and a swat team swarmed the area. That means the minute they heard that, the guys armed and that's it, that's their shoot the guy. Uh. If this is a person who who is uh, you know, has the proclivity of using you know, lethal force or the desire to use LEAFA for it's preordained, he's gonna go out. He's going to use it because he's got it built an excuse. You know, not only will they be able to justify the use of lethal force, but then everybody's going to take him out to the bar and gonna slap them on the bag. During this, Junior's family tried to explain to the deputies that he struggled with his mental health and was harmless. They were arrested. They took the dad, they took the stepmother. The stepmother and she was with one of her daughters. They put him in police cars and then they've taken to the station. And then after they hold him for a while and they talked to him and stuff. They make him sign a thing that says I admit this was just a detention, not and arrest, you know. And then um essentially some deputies they wanted to go into the house, figured out that the keys had been left in the band and so they went and they and they told the girl to give them give him the keys, and essentially they threatened them that if they threatened her, that if she didn't do it, that they would call Children's Services and have him come pick them up, taking from down, you know. That's how they talked a little thirteen fourteen year olds. Yeah, right in front of the neighbor, you know. And of course the little girl doesn't know what usually gave the keys. And then they go in the house and they promise you for stuff, and then they don't know what they're looking for. They don't quite anything useful. Jr. Meanwhile, Pop defense and crept through the alleyways between houses. He asked his neighbors to let him hide inside. There was a kid inside that house that Ricardlo when I'm tapped on the window was saying, hey, let me and ask let me and you know, the cats are looking for me, and the kids would saying no, I don't think so. My dad will get me in trouble if I do, you know, I can't. I can't and regardless of accid him, but he wouldn't let him in. So what happened was regardless decided to put down the right cool behind a little gas meter, you know how they're on the side of the house, and you couldn't see it. It literally covered it. The police report claimed that he pointed a rifle at officers, though he was unarmed at the time. They fired three shots at him. He died in a nearby Hospital's watching you think these are like the best trained, most ethical of all the officers, really the leadership corps, you know, and in the end you get the impression that they're like trained. This happen, you know, you could see it in the picture. It's very from the street. They never would have been able to see the weapon. And so he was unarmed. He was shirtless, get on these you know, these long basketball shorts and flip flop and you could clearly see he was unarmed when he was shot. But yet the police court claimed that that we pointed a rifle at him and that when the deputys thought he was endangered in shadow complete life. The alleged bullet that Queva said he heard and felt never recovered. Junior's dad was left in the dark about what was happening, including his son's death. When he asked what was going on, he wasn't told. He was detained and taken to a park, then a station, and held overnight. The rest of the Sunday Houses were detained overnight too. Ricardo Sr. Went back home, his son wasn't there. He returned to the station, where a sergeant finally told him his son had been shot. The family was left to try cold calling hospitals to find their son. Junior was listed under a wrong birthday, making the search more difficult, but Junior had already died. The Sunday House family brought a civil rights lawsuit against the county. It was settled for eight hundred and twenty five thousand dollars. County taxpayers paid for the settlement and attorney's fees on all sides which were not part of the settlement. Litigation didn't stir up any information on deputy gangs in the case, but the county keeps a list of litigation related to deputy gangs. They called the file a quote chronological list of claims, lawsuits and other settlement agreements. Involving allegations that a sworn member of l A s D was a member of a secret society or click. The Sunday House case is on it. Gonzalez didn't know this until I informed him during our interview. So I received a list from the County Board of Supervisors with a list of cases they've settled where deputy gangs are involved and the Sunday House cases on there. They What are your thoughts on that? Oh so, I don't know what list, youth. I'd love to see it. There's a huge problem with that pretty game. They're not going to give that information up very easily. The Spartans still appear to be active on the streets. In December, Lyles Sprill got off work early. He was a welder working in downtown l A. He grew up in South l A and decided to head back to the neighborhood for a bite to eat before a long drive back home. He parked at Golden Bird Chicken in willow Brook that night, so he's in that parking lot. This is Greg Krokosian, Lyle's attorney, and I think he went inside the barbershop at some point to say hi to some people. Went next door to the liquor store to get I forgot what drink to eat, and you know, so he can have And he starts walking to his car, very calmly, very slowly. As he's kind of doing that, there was a group of I forget how many six seven, eight black gentleman sitting on their car kind of in the parking lot, not too far from him, but at least, you know, thirty ft away, and two deputy cars or three deputy cars roll up. They all come out and they immediately start detaining this group of black gentlemen who are right outside the barbershop. They clearly see Lyle Sprule who's at a distance away, continuing to walk in the other direction. He's going to his car that's on kind of the other side of the parking lot. This is lyles hometown. He knows the area and the people, and he knows not to get involved in things like this. But then he opens the car door and is about to sit when another deputy car rules in from kind of the other side of the parking lot. They park right in front of Lyle. They get out, start talking to him, make him get out of the car, and start asking a bunch of questions searching him. You know, were you involved in this shooting. There's apparently some shooting that happened like four hours before the deputies the side to arrive. But the initial group of deputies didn't even bother with Lyle. They knew he wasn't in that group of people that I guess they were looking for. He gets out and he knows this neighborhood, he knows the deputies. He's lived through what they've done before, He's heard of what they've done before. And even though he did nothing wrong, he had nothing on him, you know, no guns, no drugs, no nothing. He panicked and ran. Lyle is a big guy. He ran, but not far. He was tackled, arrested, and eventually detained and taken in for questioning. The deputies involved included Ryan Rothrock, who killed Brian Pickett and Kenneth Lewis. In their report, they lied and said that Lyle ran, turned back towards them and shot at them. This was a surprise to Lyle. Why did you fire? And in the interview he kind of like stops like, whoa fire? What? What don't you fire? What? Why did you shoot at the deputies? And he's like, shoot out what deputies? Like, if I shot at deputies, I'd be dead right now. No, come on, man, just be cool. Tell us why you did it. Why did you do this? Why did you do that? Just kind of admitted, you know, it's no big deal, and we just want to know why, like oh friendly, And he is like, like, you're crazy. I've never shot at anybody. If I shot at anyone that day, I'd be dead right now. I did not have a gun, I did not fire, I did not do anything. And then he finds out all this information that you know, there's all these reports that he started to run, and then they're so detailed. I mean, this, this report of what this deputy saw is so beautifully detailed, which is kind of the funniest part of the case because he's trying to sell it in his report of what he saw and everything he remembers, and he remembers him running giving him this look stopping turning around because he's running away, but he stops turns. I think he even describes it like slinging his gun out. And the muzzle flash was bright with orange hues with a dark circle in the middle, and it was loud and it was a gunshot, and it was aimed directly at me. Lyle Sprill was charged with the attempted murder of a police officer. The next six months of his life were spent in jail. His bail was posted at four million dollars. I mean, there's no way he's going to pay the whole whole amount. But even finding a bail agent who's gonna make him pay five percent even is still just way outside anyone's means. So he just kind of sat there in custody for six months, and he was telling me he started going a little crazy. He started getting really nervous. He started because he knew he didn't do anything. One of the things they do is they call it ghost gun. Okay, so my history of understanding what ghost gun was was a gun without a serial and non br so you can't trace where it's from and that kind of stuff. Apparently the l A. Sheriff's Department gangs have a thing that they do for ships and giggles or whatever the funk. The motive is, I really don't know. What they do is they will just make up that somebody had a gun. They'll make it up that they later cannot find it's a ghost. It's gone. They saw it, they heard it, you know, they know it was there, but damn it, it disappeared and we can't find it anymore. But we all saw it, and we all heard it, and we all saw, you know whatever. They corroborate each other's versions of what happened and what they saw, and that made me kind of look into the gangs because I'm like, this is the playbook. This is what they do. This is what the gangs do. Not every not every deputy. This isn't you know, a normal l A County Sheriff's Department kind of playbook. This is a l A. S d. Gang playbook. They do this. This is exactly what they do. They do it to new recruits, they do it, you know, the members do it. I mean, it's just one of the things that they do. And I kept looking into it and looking into it, and that's when I started really making allegations and doing discovery with the Sheriff's Department regarding gangs. And so yeah, that's what happened, and that's why I got the started looking into the gangs a lot more because that was exactly what they do that the gangs Lyle was scheduled for a preliminary hearing in June, a potentially life altering sentencing hanging over his head for shooting at a police officer. It wasn't until the video came out that he was finally like, oh my God, like, there's no way I can actually get prosecuted for this. Turns out surveillance video once again told a different story than deputies. They had the video, they knew that he didn't have any gunpowder to do the gunshot residue on his hand, but they accused them of stopping turning, firing one or two shots at Deputy Gonzalez and Gomez. And once the d A finally got all this evidence, the d A hadn't gotten the negative GSR, the gunshot residue analysis, hadn't seen the video footage, and the minute the DA finally got it, which did say take some time. Das are packed with a million stuff. Once they finally looked at it, they dropped all charges. The district attorney found that the charges lacked evidence. Lyle filed a civil lawsuit against l A County, which was settled for five hundred thousand dollars and yes, that was funded by taxpayers. But once again, none of this had any impact on the culture of deputy gangs and a violent style of policing. All of this behavior was increasingly normalized and became part of the environment deputies were trained in. That's coming up next week, but before I go, I have a request. I want to hear from you. What are some of your questions about deputy gangs. We're going to have a special episode answering questions, so please send them to l A. S D Gangs at gmail dot com. DDA, who hood U fuck the police? I'm a fucking trophy. You've been listening to a tradition of violence. The history of deputy gangs in the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department hosted an executive produced by series Castle, music by Yellow Hill and Steels. We want to hear from you. If you have a question about deputy gags or the L A. S D. Please send an email to L A s D Gangs at gmail dot com. For breaking news and updates and deputy gangs, follow at l A s D Gangs on social media. To support Serius's reporting and for exclusive bonus content, subscribe to the l S D Gangs Patreon. If you're enjoying a traditional violence le's give us a five star rating and leave a written review