Date of Offense
Official Statement
Sheriff Robert G. Luna is on the Brady List for misconduct arising from his failure to adequately identify, investigate, disclose, and remediate the continuing presence of deputy gangs and deputy cliques within the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. California Penal Code section 13670 requires every law enforcement agency to maintain a policy prohibiting participation in a law enforcement gang, to make violation of that policy grounds for termination, and to cooperate with investigations by an inspector general, the Attorney General, or another authorized agency. The statute defines law enforcement gangs to include peace-officer groups associated with names, symbols, or tattoos that engage in patterns of unlawful or unethical on-duty conduct, including excessive force, falsified reports, evidence misconduct, retaliation, civil-rights violations, and unlawful protection of members from discipline.
Sheriff Luna publicly represented that LASD was addressing the deputy-gang problem by creating an Office of Constitutional Policing and later announcing a formal policy banning deputy gangs and cliques. He stated that the Office of Constitutional Policing would help eradicate deputy gangs and ensure constitutional policing, and LASD later announced a department policy formally banning deputy gangs or cliques. Those representations are materially insufficient and misleading in light of the long-established record that deputy gangs and cliques have existed in LASD since at least 1973, that prior reform efforts failed, and that such groups remain embedded in the Department’s culture. The Sheriff Civilian Oversight Commission’s special counsel report identified active or reported groups including the Executioners, Banditos, Regulators, Spartans, Gladiators, Cowboys, Reapers, and possible jail-based successor groups.
The misconduct is not merely historical. The Civilian Oversight Commission’s April 2025 report card found that key recommendations remained only partially implemented or not implemented. It specifically reported that there was still no Department policy prohibiting participation in deputy cliques, that LASD had not fully implemented a clear policy to eliminate deputy cliques and deputy gangs, and that the continued absence of a clique policy undermined leadership messaging. More recently, the Office of Inspector General reported that LASD had identified no group qualifying as a law enforcement gang under Penal Code section 13670, despite 10 pending administrative investigations relating to law-enforcement-gang or deputy-subgroup allegations and 213 allegations referred to POST. The OIG further noted that the Department’s position was implausible given the number of named groups, the Undersheriff’s testimony identifying the Banditos, and LASD’s public reporting that two deputies had been fired for membership in a tattooed subgroup known as the Industry Indians.
Sheriff Luna’s conduct therefore constitutes substantial evidence of cooperative misconduct, abuse of authority, and materially false or misleading statements concerning LASD’s Brady/Giglio reliability. The issue is not whether a memorandum or policy exists on paper. The issue is whether the Sheriff has identified the affected groups, identified the involved deputies, disclosed impeachment evidence to prosecutors, ensured Brady/Giglio notification in all affected criminal cases, cooperated fully with oversight, and removed gang-affiliated personnel from positions requiring court credibility. The available oversight record shows the opposite: unresolved investigations, incomplete policy implementation, failure to identify groups by name, delayed or withheld oversight materials, and continued reliance on confidentiality, process, and definitional arguments instead of full disclosure and structural remediation. The OIG also reported an outstanding subpoena-related request concerning surveillance of County oversight officials and noted that thousands of documents appeared not to have been provided to the OIG.
Because deputy-gang affiliation, tolerance, concealment, retaliation, excessive force, falsification of reports, unlawful protection of members, and resistance to oversight are direct impeachment issues under Brady and Giglio, Sheriff Luna’s failure to fully disclose and remediate this condition materially affects the credibility of LASD personnel. His public claim of reform, while the Department simultaneously fails to identify qualifying groups and has not fully implemented core oversight recommendations, is itself impeachment material. It demonstrates that LASD leadership is not merely failing to solve the deputy-gang problem; it is managing the appearance of reform while preserving the institutional ambiguity that allows the problem to continue.
