This is a list of
gangs whose members are associated with the
Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department (LASD) (typically
deputies). Press reports indicate the LASD has had a problem with gangs since at least the 1970s which has expanded to at least eighteen gangs.[1] The department has used the term "cliques" when discussing these groups.[2]
The 1992 Kolts Commission report said these were found “particularly at stations in areas heavily populated by minorities—the so-called ‘ghetto stations'—and deputies at those stations recruit persons similar in attitude to themselves.”[3] The first deputy gang acknowledged by the LASD was the "Little Devils" in a later-released internal memo in 1973. One or more deputy gangs are believed to have been involved in the death of Los Angeles Times reporter and law enforcement critic
Ruben Salazar during the
National Chicano Moratorium March against the
Vietnam War on August 29, 1970.[4]