Blue Ribbon Intervention Center
I have no problem with the Los Angeles Times exposing misconduct within law enforcement. In fact, it should. The public has every right to know when officers violate policy, abuse authority, or betray the public trust. Nobody hates bad cops more than good cops.
What concerns me is when a reporter chooses an angle that focuses on individuals while minimizing or ignoring facts that would lead the public to a very different conclusion.
I cannot recall many Los Angeles Times articles highlighting the heroic acts, sacrifices, or simple acts of humility performed by police officers every day. Those stories rarely make headlines. What makes headlines are scandals, allegations, and misconduct. That comes with the territory. But with that responsibility also comes an obligation to tell the complete story, especially when incomplete reporting can destroy careers, families, and lives.
For the public, a headline is often a story. For the people living through it, a headline can become a verdict.
Long before a hearing is held, before evidence is fully examined, before due process runs its course, reputations can be destroyed, careers can be derailed, families can be devastated, and years of service can be reduced to a few paragraphs that tell only part of the story.
That is why the recent Los Angeles Times article about gang scandals, “An LAPD Gang? Internal report says unit had “rampart” culture of misconduct.”
The article revisits allegations surrounding Mission Division’s Gang Enforcement Detail and once again places Sergeant Jorge Gonzalez and Lieutenant Mark Garza at the center of the narrative. Yet after reviewing thousands of pages of documents, conducting interviews, examining evidence, and working alongside additional independent forensic auditors, I reached a very different conclusion.
The evidence showed that Gonzalez was not the architect of the problem. He was one of the people who exposed it. That fact matters.
For nearly three years, his name has been publicly associated with misconduct, corruption, and now language suggesting a “law enforcement gang.” Yet very little attention has been given to evidence showing he identified the problem, reported it, and attempted to stop it. He uncovered the misconduct within approximately 45 days, not two and a half years later as occurred during the Rampart scandal.
Enough is enough. At some point, fairness requires that the public hear the other side of the story. What I find most troubling about the article is not what it reported. It is what is left out.
Readers are told about a championship belt, photographs on the wall, and allegations contained in an Internal Affairs report drafted by an investigator whose work has itself been the subject of criticism and significant liability concerns for the City. What readers are not told is that the Department ultimately exonerated Sergeant Jorge Gonzalez of failing to provide proper oversight. They are told about photographs displayed within the unit, but not that the Chief concluded those photographs were not misconduct and were maintained for gang intelligence purposes throughout the LAPD gang units. They are told about a championship belt, but not that the Department ultimately rejected the allegation that Gonzalez endorsed, facilitated or pressured the unit to engage in a gun-recovery competition. Those are not minor omissions. They are facts that directly undermine the narrative being presented. The article focuses on symbols, labels, and allegations, while giving little attention to the Department’s own final findings. When the facts that support the headline are reported but the facts that contradict it are left out, the public is not getting the whole story.
Those are not minor details. Those are facts that directly challenge the narrative being presented.
The championship belt became the symbol of the Mission GED scandal because it makes for a compelling headline and an easy visual. But a championship belt never conducted a traffic stop, never turned off a body-worn camera, and never made a leadership decision. The real issue was whether officers violated policy and whether leadership responded appropriately when problems were identified.
The public was led to believe the belt represented the culture. What is rarely discussed is that once concerns were identified, the practice was discontinued by Gonzalez. More importantly, the belt was never the root cause of the problem. It became a symbol because it was easy to understand and easy to use as evidence of a criminal gang mentality.
Police departments have always recognized performance. Officers receive commendations, medals, certificates, unit citations, and public recognition for outstanding work. Today, recognition takes many forms, including commendations, social media recognition, specialized awards, and even lapel pins recognizing firearm recoveries and other accomplishments. Recognition itself is not misconduct. The real question is whether officers violate policy in pursuit of that recognition.
Ironically, while the championship belt continues to be discussed years later, very little attention is given to the larger culture that exists throughout modern policing. Police leaders operate under constant pressure to reduce crime, remove illegal guns from the streets, and produce measurable results. In Los Angeles, those pressures are amplified through COMPSTAT, where commanding officers are expected to explain crime trends, enforcement activity, and operational performance. That pressure is not unique to Mission Division. It is discussed openly throughout law enforcement and across social media by officers, supervisors, and executives alike.
The belt is no longer the issue. The larger issue is why the media continues revisiting half-told stories about individuals, supervisors, and whistleblowers while avoiding a deeper discussion about organizational pressures, leadership decisions, Consent Decree compliance failures, and oversight systems that contributed to the problem in the first place.
Another issue that deserves scrutiny is the article’s reliance on an Internal Affairs report that repeatedly references Mission GED as a “law enforcement gang.”
That phrase is powerful. It is also highly inflammatory. The average reader immediately associates the term with organized corruption, criminal conduct, and the deputy gang scandals that have plagued other agencies. Once that label is attached, the damage is done regardless of whether the underlying facts support it.
What the article fails to explain is that the origin of that characterization itself remains disputed. During sworn testimony, the investigator associated with the report reportedly acknowledged he did not know where the term originated. Yet despite that uncertainty, the phrase found its way into official documents and ultimately into public reporting.
That distinction matters. A conclusion should be based on evidence. Evidence should not be built around a conclusion. The public deserves to know whether the “law enforcement gang” label was the product of established facts, an investigative opinion, or language repeated until it became accepted as truth. Unfortunately, that discussion never occurs. Instead, the phrase is presented as though it were a settled fact.
As someone who spent decades conducting investigations, audits, disciplinary reviews, and corruption inquiries, I learned that labels can be dangerous. They shape perceptions long before evidence is fully examined. Once a person, unit, or organization is branded with a phrase like “law enforcement gang,” every subsequent fact tends to be viewed through that lens.The more important question is whether the evidence actually supports the label. The article never seriously explores that question.
Instead, it repeats a phrase that generates attention, attracts readership, and reinforces an existing narrative while leaving readers unaware that significant questions remain regarding its origin and factual foundation.
The article also fails to address where many of the allegations against Gonzalez and other supervisors originated. Some of the most damaging allegations came from officers who were themselves among the most culpable individuals in the Mission GED scandal. Officers facing discipline, termination, and potential criminal consequences suddenly became key witnesses against supervisors.
As every experienced investigator knows, motive matters. The public deserves to know that several of these officers had every incentive to shift blame upward in order to protect themselves. Ironically, the very conduct that whistleblowers are often accused of—redirecting responsibility to save their own careers—is exactly what appears to have occurred here. Yet that receives little scrutiny.
The article states that the majority of officers were fired or resigned. That statement oversimplifies what actually occurred. Many officers retained their jobs, while supervisors who identified and reported the misconduct found themselves carrying the public stigma of the scandal. That reality deserves examination as well.
Perhaps most telling is that after years of investigations, audits, hearings, and public discussion, one of the most significant remaining allegations against Gonzalez involved a discourteous remark allegedly directed toward officers who were among the most culpable participants in the scandal. If that is what remains after years of scrutiny, then the public should ask whether the narrative has become disconnected from the underlying facts.
The public also deserves to understand what these stories do to the people involved.
Reporters move on to the next story but the subjects of those stories do not.Their spouses live with the consequences. Their children live with the consequences. Their parents live with the consequences.Their careers, reputations, finances, and mental health are affected long after the headlines disappear.
If Sergeant Gonzalez is truly the villain portrayed in this narrative, why did he request an open Board of Rights hearing and invite the Los Angeles Times and the public to attend? People with something to hide rarely ask for more transparency. Instead, the City opposed an open hearing and sought to keep the proceedings closed. That raises a simple question: what facts are they unwilling to let the public see?
An open hearing would allow the evidence—not headlines—to speak for itself. Yet before a single witness is examined under oath, another article has already revived old allegations, repeated inflammatory labels, and reinforced a narrative that has followed Gonzalez for years. Whether people admit it or not, headlines matter. They shape opinions, influence perceptions, and can affect how individuals view a case long before the evidence is presented. If transparency and accountability are truly the goal, then the focus should be on allowing the facts to emerge through the hearing process—not on publishing another headline that risks turning public opinion into the verdict before the hearing even begins.
On the very day this article was published, Sergeant Gonzalez was burying his father—a man who taught him integrity, accountability, and values. While his family was grieving, another article was published reviving allegations that have followed him for years while largely ignoring evidence that he was one of the individuals who exposed the misconduct in the first place. That is not a small detail. That is a human being.
I am a strong believer in due process, not because it always produces the outcome we want, but because it remains the best mechanism we have for reaching the truth. Whether that process ultimately vindicates someone or finds wrongdoing, the outcome should be driven by facts, not headlines.
What is equally troubling is that the article fails to address the larger issue. Both the Mission GED scandal and the current 77th Street scandal were preventable. The 77th Street scandal did not appear overnight. It was a self-inflicted wound to the Department. The warning signs existed. The policies existed. The oversight mechanisms existed.
The same can be said about Mission. The Department knew body-worn camera compliance issues existed long before the Mission scandal became public. Those concerns were not isolated to one unit or one division. They were known organizational issues.
The question is not why these scandals occurred. The question is why leadership failed to address known problems before they became scandals.Had leadership addressed those issues when first identified, the Mission scandal may never have reached the level it did. Had those lessons been fully implemented, the 77th Street scandal might never have occurred.
To the Department’s credit, Deputy Chief Emada Tingirides is now doing partly what should have been done years ago. She has brought gang units personnel together, openly addressed the issue, reinforced expectations, and focused on training and accountability.
But even now, the discussion remains focused on what happened rather than why it happened. Why were warning signs ignored? Why were audits derived from the Consent Decree not used more aggressively? Why were auditors provided good body-worn camera videos? But most importantly, why were those who exposed the problem subjected to years of scrutiny while those with the authority to prevent it escaped similar examination? These are questions worth answering.
Because until those questions are honestly addressed, the public will continue to hear half-told stories about individual officers while the institutional failures that created the conditions for these scandals remain hidden from view. That ultimately does no favors for the Department, the City, Mayor Bass, the Police Commission, (who also knew about it) or the public they serve.
Ignoring root causes never eliminates a problem. It simply guarantees that the next scandal is already being created. The public deserves accountability. The public deserves transparency. But the public also deserves the whole story.
And that story is far bigger than a championship belt, far bigger than a headline, and far bigger than any one supervisor. It is a story about leadership, accountability, due process, and the courage of those who were willing to expose a problem even when doing so came at great personal cost. That story deserves to be told too.
