The Man Who Cracked the Code of L.A.’s Notorious Sheriff Gangs

New York Magazine, February 7, 2022: The Man Who Cracked the Code of L.A.’s Notorious Sheriff Gangs

“John Sweeney, a 70-year-old civil-rights attorney from Los Angeles, doesn’t have the name recognition of Ben Crump, who has represented the families of Trayvon Martin and George Floyd and appears, Zelig-like, seemingly whenever there is a major police shooting. Nor does Sweeney much resemble Johnnie Cochran, a mentor to the young Sweeney when they worked together at the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office in the late 1970s. ‘He was a real peacock,’ Sweeney remembered recently. ‘I mean, what’s the last time you see somebody at the DA’s office driving a Rolls-Royce?’ Sweeney— who is tall, walks with a careful grace, and has freckled skin, a thin mustache, and closely cropped hair—is more like the Atticus Finch of the world of police-misconduct litigation: a gentleman who is brutally effective.

“Sweeney has built his career, as well as a sizable fortune, on exposing violent gangs that reside on the other side of the thin blue line — within the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department. These ‘deputy gangs,’ as they are known, have been accused of hunting down Black men and framing the victims as instigators. In 2020, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors estimated that legal settlements related to deputy-gang misconduct have cost taxpayers $55 million. ‘I’m not saying this in a self-aggrandizing fashion,’ Sweeney said in November, ‘but $30 million of that $55 million have been my verdicts and settlements against the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department just in the last seven or eight years.’

Additional reading:

American Policing, November 16, 2020: The Birth of the LAPD

The Guardian, August 6, 2018: Police violence, cliques, and secret tattoos: fears rise over LA sheriff 'gangs'

KPCC, November 18, 2015: Officer Involved: Why this LA officer was criminally charged with shooting a civilian