By: Marvin McCoy
Once again I say this, a prophet isn’t honored in his own home, and the public admission of newly elected Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna admitting that deputy gangs have been around for decades defies this urban myth that they originated under former Los Angeles County Board Board of Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas, whom may I add for context is facing fraud and corruption charges and viciously perpetuated by his successor Holly Mitchell that deputy gangs originated and consumed the daily operations of the Los Angeles Sheriffs Department under former Sheriff Alex Villanueva isn’t only slanderous but in essence is libel and if the former Sheriff were so inclined he would have good cause to file a claim against the County for defamation.
I invite you and your audience to watch the newly elected Sheriff’s press conference which was held on Feb. 15 about implementing and installing a constitutional commission (committee) with special priority to eliminate these so-called “deputy gangs” that were supposedly ushered in and given safe have by Villanueva.
Although Luna’s admission is astonishing in itself it doesn’t even begin to describe the complete anger and frustration towards the woke left that despises the facts saying otherwise that they with ill and malicious intent distorted the truth about the origin of deputy gangs because had they been honest, their first choice before Luna, who was Cecil Rhambo, whose close association with former indicted Sheriff Lee Baca and undersheriff Paul Tanaka should have automatically disqualified him for being a serious candidate.
By no means was our former Sheriff perfect and I think he would be first to tell you that but we as adults have to have realistic expectations from our law enforcement agencies given by Luna’s own admission yesterday that deputy gangs have existed for decades which completely contradicts the ever-shifting message of these “boogeymen” deputy gang members depending on the audience and or the messenger that under Villanueva’s tenure that gangs originated and thrived within a matter of 4 years.
How is this even plausible? It’s not. Once again the dysfunction and more important the federal consent degrees that plague LASD has been going on before Villanueva took office and bringing that picture into broader focus isn’t it time that we begin to finally admit that the biggest obstacle to LASD is the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors and Inspector General Max Huntsman?
How is it that there is a so-called deputy gang database and Huntsman’s list of 41 gang deputies then Luna spits in their faces and says he has no such list of names and/or numbers of deputy gang members in the department? You could hear a rat piss on a cotton ball with how quiet the room got. Then before he could be hammered with more questions they shoved Luna over to the Spanish media.
The “big reveal” was just as sad as Gerardo Rivera opening Al Capone’s vault only to find empty beer bottles.
The media helped coordinate a deputy gang narrative to come up empty-handed during Luna’s big announcement that the de-facto Sheriff is Eileen Decker whose track record while she was on the LAPD oversight commission didn’t result in better policing or fewer police shootings. The “respected’ journalists didn’t mention it either.
Need any more proof? I advise you to read the scathing reports produced by retiring and esteemed U.S. Senator Diane Feinstein who blasted the conditions of Los Angeles County Jails, if she even remembers writing it, noting that inmates who suffered from mental health issues were handcuffed to metal benches for days as forms of punishment which points to a chronic, systemic pattern of dysfunction that didn’t start with Villanueva but in my opinion was the most qualified person to fix the corruption and dysfunction that has notoriously plagued the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s department.
Those issues emanated under Rhambo who was over the jails during the Baca administration. The consent decrees went into effect in 2015 after the prosecution of Baca and Tanaka and Rhambo was only saved because he told on people. THEY were the root of the problems the department is currently entangled in and the Board and media had the audacity to declare Cecil Rhambo the frontrunner?
Let’s be real, Villanueva was an inconvenient problem for the Board and it should be duly noted that former Sheriff Sherman Block and disgraced and indicted former Sheriff Lee Baca if you truly understand and appreciate the long rich history of LASD they both shared cozy relationships with the elected Board of Supervisors and at that time abuse and corruption flourished seemingly and with impunity and if history should repeat itself the same pattern has already manifested itself in the short time that Sheriff Luna has assumed office.
No one asked Luna how he had time to speak to 18,000 employees in the Sheriff’s department in eight weeks when we saw him in a radio interview with Tavis Smiley Feb. 2 and then hobnobbing with the so-called “Black elite” Feb. 3? Luna was M.I.A. at a church service for Compton station personnel in January but he’s spoken to everyone? HOW?
Sadly this isn’t going to end well and unfortunately, the residents of Los Angeles County will suffer the most because although ambitious it’s clearly obvious that Luna isn’t qualified and more importantly not equipped to lead the Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department and on a larger scale compromises the safety of the people he’s elected to serve but also compromises the safety of the deputies he was elected to lead.
I’m sorry but the “esteemed” Eileen Decker isn’t the prophet that’s going to save LASD and if I learned anything from Sheriff Luna’s press conference was that this is all being orchestrated by political operatives who are pulling Luna’s strings like Pinocchio.
In closing, the only way to fix LASD is with the truth and as the saying goes “ye shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free” and if we are to take the new Sheriff at his word according to his press conference yesterday the problem with deputy gangs within LASD has been around for decades and to that extent the woke left owes Villanueva a public apology.
Marvin McCoy is a lifelong Inglewood resident and can be reached at therealmccoymarketinggroup@gmail.com or on Twitter @MarvinM83905936
