LOS ANGELES — Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva launched his reelection campaign Saturday in Santa Fe Springs, as the embattled sheriff seeks a second term to lead a department under investigation by the state attorney general and its own oversight agency.

Villanueva has sought to move past the department’s decades-old deputy gang scandals, even demanding in February the Board of Supervisors stop using the term.

Then on Friday, the county Civilian Oversight Commission launched a full-scale investigation into deputy gangs.

It is no longer a secret that some deputies inside the Compton’s Sheriff’s station have a matching tattoo under their uniforms — the same image of a skeleton wearing a helmet and holding an AK-47 has appeared on deputy’s personal vehicles and inside the station itself.

In a recent deposition, Compton Deputy Jaime Juarez said he’s attended seven inking parties for deputies invited to get the tattoo; however, he took his lawyer’s advice against answering if he has one himself.

“It’s pretty much the line deputies, the deputies that work patrol, that decide if they see a deputy that’s a leader at the station, who conducts himself in a professional manner, who serves the public and the department with honor and respect.”

Juarez’s deposition is part of a lawsuit concerning an alleged ‘deputy gang’ in the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.

“Just to be clear, your testimony today is that getting that tattoo on your body does not connotate membership to any group? Is that correct?” asked opposing lawyer Al Romero.

“To me, personally? No,” Juarez said.

Villanueva supports a new state law that makes law enforcement gangs illegal and told Spectrum News his department is cooperating with investigations.

“We’ve arrived at conclusions and made employment decisions,” Villanueva said. “We even referred cases to the district attorney. We’ve asked for the attorney general to step in on cases and also the feds, so we’re not hiding anything from anybody.”

The Juarez deposition follows bombshell testimony by Compton Deputy Art Gonzalez in 2020, regarding a group of tattooed deputies in Compton known as the “Executioners.” He said the deputy who shot teenage security guard, Andres Guardado, was trying to earn the tattoo.

The department investigated claims, but the results had been kept secret until this week, when Inspector General Max Huntsman revealed the probe uncovered 30 deputies with the tattoo in Compton. A separate investigation found 11 deputies with matching “Banditos” tattoos in East LA.

Huntsman said there’s not enough information for him to call the Compton group a “deputy gang” and that the internal report found the group did not refer to themselves as the “Executioners.”

“Are there gangs in the sheriff’s department? Yes,” Huntsman said, noting that groups grow and fade through time. “That kind of precision is what’s necessary for the state to take action to do something about it.”

Villanueva said the recent investigations are politically motivated to hurt his campaign in the June primary, accusing Huntsman and the Civilian Oversight Commission of engaging in a proxy war on behalf of his political opponents on the Board of Supervisors.

“I don’t expect deputies to get tattoos of Hello Kitty,” Villanueva said of the Compton tattoo. “Let’s be realistic here. These are grown men, grown women. The tattoos they put on themselves is an expression of their First Amendment right. If and when that translates into criminal conduct and behavior that harms others, we’re all ears.”

Huntsman believes Villanueva is engaged in a cover-up.

“The story that’s told to the press and the truth and the records do not appear to be the same,” Huntsman said.

Juarez said the skeleton image is not the only matching tattoo affiliated with deputies inside Compton station.

“The other one, it looks like a gladiator or an ‘ax man.’ A figure with a helmet and an ax,” Juarez said, adding he doesn’t know what the tattoo means.