Police Misconduct Attorney Los Angeles County, CA

Police Misconduct Attorney Jerry L. Steering has been suing the police since 1984 for police brutality, false arrests, malicious criminal prosecutions, wrongful deaths and First Amendment retaliation cases. Mr. Steering in an Expert and Specialist in suing the police in federal court for constitutional violations throughout Los Angeles County and throughout the State of California. Mr. Steering has also sued the government as far away as in federal courts in Alabama and in the District of Columbia.

“THE YOUNG LAWYER KNOWS THE LAW, BUT THE OLD LAWYER KNOWS THE JUDGE”.

Mr. Steering’s many years of experience and acquired knowledge can help you maximize your chances of actually winning your Police Misconduct Civil Rights case, and winning is the only thing that matters. If you cannot win your Civil Rights Police Misconduct Lawsuit then you have no rights, because you have no way to enforce them, and a right without a remedy in the real world does not exist.

THE POLICE IN LOS ANGELES COUNTY ARE OFTEN BRUTAL AND ARE INSTITUTIONALLY DISHONEST.

Los Angeles County is the most populous county in the United States, with approximately 9.85 million residents, who account for approximately 27% of California’s population. Los Angeles County is more populous that 40 individual states.

There are 88 cities in Los Angeles County, California, each of which city has a mayor and a city council. Forty of those cities contract with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department for their police services (See below the list of those contract cities).

SCANDALS WITHIN THE LOS ANGELES COUNTY SHERIFF’S DEPARTMENT POSE A SERIOUS THREAT TO THE PUBLIC.

The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department has a long history of scandals.

Between 1914 and 1921, Los Angeles County Sheriff John C. Cline embezzled hundreds of thousands of dollars before the county Board of Supervisors fired him. See, When the Board of Supervisors last threw out the sheriff, Los Angeles Times, October 15, 2020.

In the 1922 “Inglewood Raid,” three Ku Klux Klansmen who were caught ransacking the home of bootleggers were outed as Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department deputies. Los Angeles County Sheriff William Traeger publicly condemned the KKK, vowing to fire deputies on Klan membership rosters. However, during the investigation of that incident Sheriff Traeger’s own past KKK membership was revealed. See, Our Gang: A Racial History Of The Little Rascals, VDOC PUB.

Sherman Block was the Los Angeles County Sheriff from 1982 until his death in 1998, when he passed away during his re-election campaign. resulting in Lee Baca being elected Sheriff. During Sherman Block’s reign as Los Angeles County Sheriff the department suffered scandals involving narcotics officers skimming money, jail inmates being beaten, tortured and otherwise terribly abused, and fraud. Moreover during Sheriff’s Block’s tenure as Sheriff, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held that neo-Nazi White Supremacist gangs who were mistreating minorities were rampant throughout the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. See, Thomas v. County of Los Angeles, 978 F.2d 504 (1992).

Sheriff Block’s successor, Lee Baca and Baca’s Undersheriff, Paul Tanaka, further disgraced the reputation of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, when they were sentenced to federal prison for threatening an FBI Agent if she continued to investigate the beatings and torturing of inmates at the Los Angeles County Jails (Baca and Tanaka convicted of obstructing federal investigation into corruption and civil rights abuses at county jail facilities). See, Former L.A. County Sheriff Lee Baca Sentence to 3 Years in Federal Prison for Leading Scheme to Obstruct Investigation into Jails, United States Attorney’s Office, May 12, 2017.

The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department has survived scandal after scandal for no other reason than society simply cannot disband the Sheriff’s Department. We all recognize that we need policing to keep the peace and to prevent mass chaos and a lawless place where the criminals rule the streets.

THE LATEST SCANDAL; DEPUTY GANGS IN THE LOS ANGELES COUNTY SHERIFF’S DEPARTMENT.

The present scandal with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department is that of deputy gangs; subgroups of deputy sheriffs who, save their official capacity as peace officers, are almost indistinguishable from criminal street gangs. These deputy gangs pose a real danger to the public. See, The Murderous Police Gangs of Los Angeles, The Gravel Institute, Aug 20, 2021. See also, Deputy Gangs, Office of Inspector General, County of Los Angeles.

These deputy gangs have their own station tattoos, essentially having their members committed to the gang in perpetuity. When they are admitted to the various station gangs, the newly admitted deputy gangsters are invited to an “Inking Party”, where they receive their respective station tattoos. See, Sheriff’s deputy testifies he attended seven ‘inking parties’ linked to Compton group, Los Angeles Times, February 19, 2022.

These Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department deputy gangs include: the Banditos (East Los Angeles station), the Reapers (South Los Angeles station), the Spartans (Century station), the Executioners/CPT (Compton station) the 2000 Boys and the 3000 Boys (L.A. County Central Jail), the Buffalo Soldiers (African American Deputies Clique), the Cavemen (East Los Angeles Station), the Vikings (Lynwood Station), the Little Red Devils (East Los Angeles station), The Grim Reapers (Lennox Station), the Wayside Whities (Wayside Jail facility) and many others. See, Gangs in the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, Wikipedia. See also, CJLP Deputy Gang Report (CJLP Releases Report on Impact of L.A. Deputy Sheriff Gangs), Loyola Marymount School of Law, and Deputy Gangs, Sheriff Civilian Oversight Commission, County of Los Angeles, March 2023.

The deputy gang problem became so severe that in 2021 the California Legislature attempted to ban all gangs of peace officers at any California police agency with the enactment of Cal. Pen. Code § 13670. However, notwithstanding paying lip service to Section 13670, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department has essentially done nothing to ban those deputy gangs of deputies within its ranks. See, New report says deputy gangs thrive in LA County Sheriff’s Department (Civilian Oversight Commission says ex-Sheriff Villanueva’s claim that gangs are gone “is flatly false), Los Angeles Daily News, March 3, 2023. See also, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department’s Legal Compliance: Deputy Gangs, Office of Inspector General, County of Los Angeles, February 26, 2024. See also, LASD is openly violating state law on deputy gangs, according to leaked documents, Los Angeles Public Press, May 8, 2024.

CRIMINAL STREET GANGS IN LOS ANGELES COUNTY.

In addition to murderous Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department deputy gangs, there are approximately 200,000 criminal street gangs in Los Angeles County that menace innocent civilians on a daily basis. See, List of criminal gangs in Los Angeles, Wikipedia, Street Gangs and Sub-Cultures, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department; Historical Crime Gangs of Los Angeles, L.A. County Arrest Records, and Tales from the hood: LA’s street gang culture – in pictures, The Guardian, November 24, 2023. 

Many of the Los Angeles County Hispanic criminal street gangs are affiliated with the notorious international Hispanic MS-13 gang. See, Federal grand jury indicts 23 MS-13 gang members for alleged widespread meth trafficking, KABC 7 News, November 14, 2023; MS13, InSight Crime, April 3, 2025; MS-13: The Making of America’s Most Notorious Gang, Texas LBJ School of Public Affairs, October 8, 2020.

The Crips and the Bloods, two majority-Black street gangs founded in Los Angeles (L.A.), have been in a gang war since around 1971. See, Crips–Bloods gang war, Wikipedia. Most of the African-American criminal street gangs are affiliated with either the Crips or the Bloods. See, Crips And Bloods: Black American Gangs In Los Angeles, law.jrank; How The Crips And The Bloods Actually Work | How Crime Works Marathon | Insider. See also, Blood Gangs in the City of Los Angeles – Watts, South LA, streetgangs.com, and Crip and other Gangs in the City of Los Angeles | Neighborhood Crips | Trays | Eastside | Westside | Watts | West LA

Many believe that the rise of the deputy gangs in the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department is a phenomenon that arose to combat the many thousands of criminal street gang members that populate Los Angeles County. It makes sense. After all, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department doesn’t have the motto “We’re the baddest gang in town” for no reason.

LOS ANGELES COUNTY SHERIFF’S DEPARTMENT MISTREATMENT OF THE PUBLIC WHO ARE NOT CRIMINALS.

In the era of modern policing in America, most police agencies in Los Angeles County are dressed and equipped as though they are preparing for battle in a theater of war rather than street patrol. When you dress like you’re ready to take on the Taliban, you act accordingly. Ergo, mistreatment of innocent law-abiding civilians by Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department deputy sheriffs is much more common than we all would like.

Most of these incidents of Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department deputy sheriffs take place in the context of “Contempt of Cop” situations. See, The “Contempt of Cop Game”; How Well Can You Play?, steeringlaw.

Today’s police officers take no chances with their safety. In years gone by traffic stops by police officers were usually uneventful. Those traffic stops usually involved the officer simply asking the motorist for their license and registration, the officer giving the motorist a citation, and each then going their own way.

Today’s traffic stops are often not so uneventful. These days, officers will order the motorist to exit their vehicle and subject them to pat-down searches of their persons for weapons, and even searches of their vehicles; notwithstanding the U.S. Supreme Court dramatically limiting vehicle searches. See, Arizona v. Gant, 556 U.S. 332 (2009) (limiting vehicle searches to area where motorist could reach for weapon, and only if motorist lawfully arrested).

When those basically law-abiding citizens verbally protest or verbally challenge police orders to exit their vehicles and to submit to searches of their persons and vehicles, the police now deem them to be in “Contempt of Cop“. When that happens, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department deputy sheriffs will then often beat or tase or pepper-spray persons, and thereafter falsely arrest and procure the malicious criminal prosecutions of innocents who are doing nothing more than rightfully exercising their constitutional rights to verbally challenge or verbally protest police actions or orders. This is common and happens all day, every day in Los Angeles County.

Moreover, don’t expect the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department or the California Department of Justice / Attorney General’s Office or even the FBI to side with you when you are beaten, falsely arrested and maliciously prosecuted for some fabricated “resistance offense” such as violation of Cal. Penal Code § 69 (resisting officer with force), Cal. Penal Code § 148(a)(1) (resisting/delaying/obstructing a officer), Cal. Penal Code § 240/241 (assault on officer), Cal. Penal Code § 242 / 243(b) & (c) (battery on officer causing injury) and Cal. Penal Code § 245(c) (assault on officer with the weapon).

The best thing to do in Los Angeles County if you are stopped by a Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department deputy sheriff is to shut your mouth, do whatever the deputy tells you to do, and you will probably come away without a beating or false arrest.

IF YOU ARE THE VICTIM OF POLICE MISCONDUCT, JERRY L. STEERING CAN HELP YOU ACTUALLY ENFORCE YOUR RIGHTS BY WINNING YOUR CASE.

The only thing that matters when enforcing your rights, is whether you win your case. If you don’t win your case, then you have no rights because you have no way to enforce them. 

Just because the police violated your constitutional rights doesn’t mean that you can do anything about it. In order to “do something about it”, to enforce your constitutional rights, it takes a great deal of experience, insights, skill and savvy. You need a unanimous jury of usually 8 jurors to vote in your favor in federal court to win your case. If you mouth-off to the cops or don’t do what the police tell you to do or cuss out the cops, or act like a jerk, one or more of the jurors in your case may not vote for you. That is the reality in which we all live.

Mr. Steering’s many years of experience and knowledge in suing the police can help you maximize your chances of winning your Police Misconduct Civil Rights case, and winning is the only thing that matters.

Jerry L. Steering has been suing police agencies for constitutional violations since 1984. He has the experience, insights, skill and savvy to actually win your police misconduct civil rights case, and winning is the only thing that matters. As the old saying goes, “The young lawyer knows the law, but the old lawyer knows the Judge”. 

If you are the victim of police misconduct, Jerry L. Steering can help you. Call Jerry L. Steering, Esq. at (949) 474-1849, or email Mr. Steering at jerry@steeringlaw.com .

FREE CASE EVALUATION

 

LIST OF CITIES THAT CONTRACT WITH THE LOS ANGELES COUNTY SHERIFF’S DEPARTMENT FOR ITS POLICE SERVICES:

City of Agoura Hills

City of Artesia

City of Avalon (Santa Catalina Island)

City of Bellflower

City of Bradbury

City of Calabasas

City of Carson

City of Cerritos

City of Commerce

City of Compton

City of Cudahy

City of Diamond Bar

City of Duarte

City of Hawaiian Gardens

City of Hidden Hills

City of Industry

City of La Canada Flintridge

City of La Habra Heights

City of Lakewood

City of La Mirada

City of Lancaster

City of La Puente

City of Lawndale

City of Lomita

City of Lynwood

City of Malibu

City of Maywood

City of Norwalk

City of Palmdale

City of Paramount

City of Pico Rivera

City of Rancho Palos Verdes

City of Rolling Hills

City of Rolling Hills Estates

City of Rosemead

City of San Dimas

City of Santa Clarita

City of South El Monte

City of Temple City

City of Walnut

City of West Hollywood

City of Westlake Village