On Thursday, June 10, 2022, the Los Angeles County Civilian Oversight Commission<\/a> (COC), held the second of its series of special hearings on the issue of deputy gangs inside the Los Angeles Sheriff\u2019s Department.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n The hearings, which are being run by a special prosecutor and his pro bono team of high profile lawyers, has the advantage of being able to subpoena witnesses who are then required to testify under oath before the commission, and in front of anyone else who wants to tune in virtually.<\/p>\n The first of the public hearings, which was held on May 24,<\/a>featured an array of witnesses, and was loaded with drama.\u00a0 (You can find WLA\u2019s account of the hearing and related events here.<\/a>)<\/p>\n Thursday\u2019s 9 a.m. hearing was scheduled to feature recently retired LASD Chief Matthew Burson.<\/p>\n Matters did not, however, go as planned.<\/p>\n Burson, if readers will remember, was critical to the sequence of events having to do with Sgt. Jefferson Chow,<\/a> a 26-year veteran of the LASD, who in late April of this year gave a deposition under oath about his actions and experiences in the fall of 2018, when he was the lead investigator on a case being probed by the department\u2019s Internal Criminal Investigations Bureau, or ICIB.\u00a0<\/p>\n Specifically, Chow was investigating whether or not crimes had been committed by a cluster of deputies who worked at the East Los Angeles station and were considered to be\u00a0 \u201cshot callers\u201d of the Bandito deputy gang that is based out of East LA. These were the Bandito deputies who, at an after-hours party in September 2018, reportedly physically assaulted four other station deputies who were disliked by the Bandito members, allegedly for their failure to knuckle under to what the deputy clique perceived to be their authority at the station.\u00a0<\/p>\n It was Chow\u2019s job to find out if there was sufficient cause for the LA County District Attorney\u2014who was, at the time Jackie Lacey\u2014to prosecute the Bandito deputies for their actions.<\/p>\n Yet, according to Chow\u2019s deposition\u2014along with the highly detailed log <\/a>he kept as he worked the case, as the sergeant was ramping up his investigation\u2014then-Captain Burson conveyed the message that, in the course of Chow\u2019s interviews with eyewitnesses and others, he shouldn\u2019t ask any questions about deputy \u201csubcultures,\u201d also known as deputy gangs, an issue that was at the heart of the incident.<\/p>\n It was Chow\u2019s understanding that the order to steer clear of the topic of \u201csubcultures\u201d came straight from the top, although Alex Villanueva had only been elected as sheriff a few days before, in a surprise defeat of incumbent Jim McDonnell.<\/p>\n If Chow\u2019s account is true, according to Inspector General Max Huntsman and other commission members, Villanueva\u2019s actions may very well constitute obstruction of justice.<\/p>\n Thus, the COC and the special council wanted to question Burson with respect to his knowledge about whether or not Sheriff Villanueva gave direct orders that stood in the way of Chow and ICIB doing a full investigation into a deputy-on-deputy\u00a0assault serious enough that two of the non-Bandito deputies were reportedly rushed to the\u00a0hospital.\u00a0<\/p>\n The special council also said he and his investigators had heard from another department witness that Burson had indeed met with Villanueva on or about Dec. 3, of 2018, which was the day that the new sheriff was sworn in to the office.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Four days later still, on Dec. 7, 2018, Burson told Chow not to ask questions about deputy subgroups.<\/p>\n It was this series of events that caused Deixler and the COC to subpoena Burson to testify on June 10.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Yet, when the actual hearing arrived, Burson declined to show up.<\/p>\n \u201cUnfortunately Mr. Burson has decided not to honor the subpoena,\u201d Deixler told the COC shortly after 9 a.m. on June 10.<\/p>\n And so it was that the Civilian Oversight Commission voted to ask the court to compel Former Chief Burson to appear, like it or not.<\/p>\n They also voted to ask the court to compel appearances from former LASD chief-of-staff, Larry Del Mese, Chief April Tardy,\u00a0 Undersheriff Tim Murakami, and Sheriff Villanueva himself.<\/p>\n Deixler told the COC that a lot of the witnesses he and his team have interviewed in the course of their investigation thus far, are fearful of testifying publicly at a public hearing, even if the witnesses promised complete anonymity, such as was offered to a department member witness at the last hearing. This witness was not on camera, yet testified at length with his\/her voice disguised to the point that even the witness\u2019s gender was unrecognizable.<\/p>\n But, despite similar promises made to many witnesses who were forthcoming in interviews, they told investigators they feared for their physical safety and\/or believed that testifying in public would be \u201ccareer suicide,\u201d Deixler said.<\/p>\n Yet, for Burson, who is retired, presumably career damage is not the issue.\u00a0<\/p>\n In the case of the other working\u00a0 department members who didn\u2019t want to appear, Deixler described some of the information they provided in interviews about the East LA Station in particular. Much of this new information, according to Deixler, confirmed what had been said by the deputy who testified anonymously at the first meeting, where he\/she described a pattern of humiliating and endangering those deputies working in East LA who didn\u2019t go along with the rules of the Bandito shot callers.\u00a0 <\/p>\n These methods, according to the newly interviewed department members, included failing to provide back-up on dangerous calls, physical assaults, loosening or removal of lugnuts on disfavored deputies\u2019 cars, \u201cdemeaning and derogatory statements\u201d about the deputies \u201cover the radio,\u2019\u201d and the wrongful arrests of innocent civilians to inflate arrest numbers\u2014and more.<\/p>\n Before the end of the Thursday\u2019s meeting Commissioner Robert Bonner once more stressed the importance of forcing the issue in court to get Sheriff Villanueva to \u201cappear and testify under oath before this commission about this incredibly important matter that\u2019s infecting the Los Angeles Sheriff\u2019s department.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n (On a side note, for anyone who is not sure whether or not former federal judge Rob Bonner understands the pressures and difficulties of leading a large law enforcement agency \u00a0it helps to review his CV<\/a>.)<\/p>\n Before adjournment, Bonner made sure that county counsel understood they were not to delay in any way with expediting these subpoenas, including Burson\u2019s, and advised county counsel to file an order to show cause, and to inform Burson that he will be held in contempt, which may mean he\u2019ll be fined and\u00a0jailed, if need be,\u00a0 until he decides to show-up and testify under oath.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n The next special hearing is scheduled for July 1, 2022. <\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/witnessla.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/Screen-Shot-2022-06-14-at-9.47.14-AM-1024x631.png\")