The LAPD internal investigation leveled a troubling allegation: Officers in a specialized unit tasked with combating street gangs had themselves behaved like a gang.
In 2023, officers in the San Fernando Valley were accused of making dozens of improper traffic stops and attempting to hide their actions from their supervisors by switching off their body cameras.
When confronted by Internal Affairs detectives, according to the findings of a months-long probe, officers in the Valley’s “gang enforcement detail” said they were engaged in a “gun hunting competition,” with each firearm-related arrest tracked on a whiteboard in their office. Cops with the most seizures would pose for pictures with pro-wrestling-style championship belt that had “Mission GED Pistoleros” emblazoned on the buckle.
The Internal Affairs report, like most records around police discipline, was kept confidential by the LAPD and its findings have not previously been made public. The report said the Valley unit was a “law enforcement gang.”
Allegations of deputy gangs operating within the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department have been well documented, but this is the first known instance of the LAPD using the label on its own officers. California state law defines a “law enforcement gang” as a group of officers “who engage in a pattern of on-duty behavior that intentionally violates the law or fundamental principles of professional policing.”
LAPD leaders said at the time that the problems were confined to that one division. But a new case involving a similar allegations against anti-gang officers operating out of South L.A.’s 77th Street patrol area has reignited questions about whether there are deeper issues across the department.
In late May, the 77th Street gang squad was temporarily disbanded amid an internal investigation into misconduct that was allegedly driven by a push to seize illegal firearms.
As in the earlier case, multiple officers have been accused of systematically disabling their body cameras to conduct so-called “ghost stops,” using the moments when they weren’t being recorded to stop motorists and improperly search their vehicles. A department spokesperson said 14 officers and two sergeants have been barred from having public contact and assigned to administrative duties.
The LAPD’s civilian watchdog has demanded an audit to ensure, as one official said during a May 12 meeting, that the unit’s actions aren’t “just a tip of the iceberg.”
The scrutiny comes at a time when city leaders are seeking to limit minor traffic stops over concerns of racial bias, forcing LAPD leaders to to reevaluate tactics they have long said are key to getting illegal guns and drugs off the streets.
In the San Fernando Valley case, Internal Affairs investigators reported turning up an “overwhelming pattern of intentional policy violations” by the officers involved, and said poor management allowed a “rampant culture of misconduct” to fester.
A majority of the Valley unit’s officers and supervisors have either been fired or resigned. One officer, Alan Carrillo, faced criminal prosecution over allegations of theft. Last summer, he was entered a pretrial diversion program that required him to surrender his law enforcement certification and complete 50 hours of community service.
The Internal Affairs report said the LAPD started its investigation after a December 2022 traffic stop in which two Valley gang officers detained a driver they suspected of having an expired registration. The man later filed a complaint, saying one of the officers told him that he didn’t have any rights as they searched his belongings.
The internal LAPD report said officers told investigators one of their supervisors pressured them to prioritize illegal weapons seizures above all else.
“There are guns out there! Get out there and bring me back a pistola,” one officer quoted the supervisor as saying, according to the report.
Another officer told the investigators he heard a colleague “gloat” about letting vehicle theft suspects go free because he was so focused on making gun arrests, the report said.
The department has sought to fire the supervisor, Sgt. Jorge “George” Gonzalez, whose disciplinary hearing is set for this fall. Gonzalez and another supervisor, Lt. Mark Garza, have filed separate legal claims against the city, alleging they had tried to warn command staff about problems in the unit, only to be scapegoated when the scandal broke into public view.
Last month, the Los Angeles City Council voted to restrict the use of “pretext” traffic stops. The LAPD’s gang units have long used minor traffic violations — such as a broken taillight or heavily tinted windows — as justification to pull someone over, question them and search their vehicle. Activists and some city leaders have voiced concerns that the stops are racially biased, sowing fear and distrust in the community.
Courts have deemed pretext stops to be constitutional, but LAPD officials have said officers are trained to follow a higher legal standard, only stopping someone when they have reasonable suspicion or probable cause that a crime has been committed. They can can also stop people they believe are on parole or wanted for a crime.
The union that represents the city’s rank-and-file officers has argued that the City Council’s proposed restrictions — which require approval by the Police Commission before taking effect — would undermine officers’ ability to enforce traffic laws.
Officials have in the past touted the 77th Street gang unit as one of the department’s best, trumpeting its arrests and seizures of gun and drugs on social media. The division covers a 12-square-mile patch of South L.A. that is the turf of several notorious gangs and has historically accounted for more homicides and robberies than nearly any other police patrol area.
But the latest allegations have renewed concerns that department may have forgotten the lessons of past controversies involving officers conducting improper stops and searches.
In the late 1990s, officers from a gang unit in the LAPD’s Rampart Division were accused of robbing people and planting evidence, among other crimes. The scandal led to prosecutions and convictions of some officers, and a federal consent decree that mandated reforms.
Justin Alexander, a former LAPD officer, said he has faced constant harassment from the 77th Street gang unit.
When he was a rookie officer in May 2020, Alexander said, he was on his day off when he witnessed a shooting while walking back to his mother’s house in the Chesterfield Square neighborhood. Despite identifying himself as a fellow officer, he said the gang cops who responded to the scene still treated him like he was a suspect and accused him of tampering with evidence, which he denied.
The allegations led to Alexander being kicked out of the department, and he said that he continued to get hassled whenever he visited his mother.
The experience, he said, led him to believe that the officers were capable of breaking the law in the name of fighting gangs.
“It almost gets as if there is a gang in the police department, working to combat the gangs,” Alexander said. “If they’re willing to lie about that, what else are they willing to lie about on the streets?”