By all accounts, the story should be simple. Sheriff Robert Luna ran in 2022 on a clear promise: dismantle the deputy gang culture that has defined controversy inside the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department for decades. He named the problem. He acknowledged the damage. He pledged reform.
But today, even the basic question, do deputy gangs exist?, depends entirely on who you ask.
In a stunning contradiction, a recent report from the Office of Inspector General, highlighted in reporting by The Current Report, suggests there is no evidence of active deputy gangs within LASD. At nearly the same time, Chief Laura Lecrevain testified under oath that in her 30-year career, deputy gangs have never existed at all. Not diminished. Not reformed. Not eradicated. Never there to begin with.
That assertion stands in direct conflict with years of litigation, internal records, federal findings, and public statements, including those made by Luna himself, who campaigned on eliminating what oversight bodies once described as a “cancer” within the department.
So which is it?
Because the public is now being asked to accept three mutually exclusive narratives: that deputy gangs were pervasive and required eradication, that they existed but are now gone, or that they never existed at all.
No one can seem to get their stories straight.
And that is precisely where this investigation begins.
The Current Report is now attempting to do what county leadership, oversight bodies, and LASD command staff have failed to do: separate fact from fiction, and truth from a rapidly shifting narrative.
Luna’s public reform agenda was aggressive on paper. He created the Office of Constitutional Policing, adopted a “zero tolerance” stance, and in 2024 implemented a formal ban on deputy gangs following pressure from the Civilian Oversight Commission, evolving state law, and mounting lawsuits tied to tattooed deputy cliques such as the Grim Reapers, Banditos, Regulators, and V Boys.
But internally, a very different system continues to operate.
Luna’s command staff and inner circle reveal a pattern that is impossible to ignore. Numerous high-ranking officials either currently carry, or previously carried, station tattoos tied to these same cliques. In case after case, the explanation follows a familiar script: “the tattoo was from years ago”, “it has since been removed”, and “it no longer reflects current affiliation.”
Yet, those claims have rarely been subjected to meaningful Internal Affairs scrutiny. Timelines go unverified. Documentation is absent. And testimony, particularly in litigation, often mirrors itself so closely that insiders describe it as coordinated.
Consider the leadership structure itself:
Undersheriff April Tardy, Luna’s second-in-command, has acknowledged a Temple Station tattoo, TEM alongside LASD with a Roman numeral V, framed publicly as pride, but identified by sources as the V Boys mark. She remains in the highest appointed position in the department
Chief Jose Mendoza, who oversees the Detective Division, admitted to carrying a Banditos tattoo, a skeleton in a sombrero with a bandolier and pistol. He stated he “covered it out of embarrassment”. Under Luna, that history did not hinder his advancement.
Commander Rodney Moore, currently working alongside Eileen Decker at Office of Constitutional Policing, overseeing the deputy gang task force is reportedly a tattooed member of the Regulators out of the Century Station. Lieutenant Scott Chapman, tied to a Temple Station tattoo, was also assigned to the same task force. The optics are difficult to reconcile with the stated mission.
Commander John “JP” McDonald, another Century Station Regulator, oversaw Personnel and new recruits. In testimony tied to the Benjamin Torres case, he claimed his tattoo had been removed in 2016. Yet a photograph reportedly surfaced showing the tattoo still present after 2017, including what sources describe as newer USC shoes. No Internal Affairs investigation followed. No perjury inquiry. No accountability.
Commander Edmundo “Mundo” Torres, tied to a Banditos tattoo out of East Los Angeles, and Commander Robert Jones III, associated with a Palmdale Station tattoo, offered nearly identical explanations regarding pre-Luna removal. Insiders describe the statements as scripted. Again, no Internal Affairs review.
Lieutenant Omar Comacho, carrying a Norwalk Station tattoo, transitioned from being a driver under former Sheriff Jim McDonnell to serving as an aide to Assistant Sheriff Skeen, another example of proximity to power intersecting with advancement.
Assistant Sheriff Myron Johnson admitted under oath to having a Buffalo Soldiers tattoo and openly criticized the department’s practice of asking about tattoos without documenting the responses. Despite raising concerns about the very policy framework, his career trajectory continued upward.
Taken together, these are not isolated cases. They form a pattern.
A pattern where tattoos, once cited as evidence of problematic subculture, are reframed as harmless history when attached to the right individuals. A pattern where removal claims are accepted without verification. A pattern where enforcement depends less on policy and more on proximity to leadership.
This is not eradication, it is selective curation.
However, nowhere is the contradiction more glaringly visible than in Luna’s own inner circle.
According to multiple department sources, Luna’s personal security detail includes individuals identified internally as tattooed Grim Reapers, the very clique he once used as a political contrast against former Sheriff Alex Villanueva. Sergeants Armando Cuevas, Ricardo Cobian, and Javier Estrella, all linked by sources to South LA, have operated within Luna’s orbit, with Cobian and Estrella later promoted to lieutenant and reassigned to Lakewood Station. Cobian, despite limited watch commander experience, was elevated into a role as Luna’s personal aide.
Internal warnings, according to sources, were raised.
They were ignored.
Cuevas’s public record only deepens the concern. Posting under his own name on WitnessLA, he openly described himself as part of a “gang of gun slinging hard chargers,” praising former Undersheriff Paul Tanaka and framing LASD clique culture as a form of loyalty and identity. Multiple sources have confirmed the events described by Cuevas on the news platform. The language was not subtle. It was declarative.
And yet, this is the network surrounding a sheriff who claims to have eliminated deputy gangs.
The contradiction is not incidental. It is structural.
Meanwhile, those outside these networks, such as Captain Benjamin Torres, have faced starkly different treatment. Torres, a decorated 30-year veteran, alleges he was denied promotion specifically because he refused to remove a tattoo others were permitted to explain away. His lawsuit exposed a critical detail: the department asks about tattoos, but deliberately avoids documenting the answers.
In other words, the policy exists, but the paper trail does not.
That absence is not accidental. It is protective.
Because documentation creates accountability. And accountability would require reconciling the growing list of contradictions now surrounding LASD leadership.
An Inspector General report suggesting no gangs. A chief testifying they never existed. A sheriff who built his campaign on eliminating them. And a command structure that continues to promote individuals tied to the very culture in question.
This is no longer a question of policy failure. It is a credibility crisis.
Sheriff Luna condemned the past while quietly reconstructing it. He promised transparency while allowing critical questions to remain undocumented. He presented reform while preserving the internal networks that made reform necessary in the first place.
What has been sold to the public as transformation increasingly resembles something far more familiar inside Los Angeles County government: patronage, loyalty, and selective enforcement—repackaged under the language of reform.
Deputy gangs, we are now told, either no longer exist or never existed at all.
And yet, they remain, embedded, promoted, and protected at the highest levels of the department.
The truth is in there.
The problem is, no one in power seems willing to say it out loud.
