A former Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy says he was fired after refusing to take part in law enforcement gang activity, according to a lawsuit filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court.
Federico Carlo, the ex-deputy behind the suit, alleges he was wrongly accused of giving a Nazi salute and sharing a sexually explicit photo, then “abruptly terminated” by a “tattooed Regulator deputy gang member” who is now the acting commander overseeing training and personnel.
The acting commander did not respond to a request for comment from the Los Angeles Times, and the department did not answer questions about whether he has or had a Regulator tattoo.
“The department has not officially received this claim but strives to provide a fair and equitable working environment for all employees,” officials wrote in an emailed statement to The Times. “Any act of retaliation, harassment, and discrimination will not be tolerated and is a violation of the department’s policy and values.”
For decades, the Sheriff’s Department has been bedeviled by allegations about gangs of deputies working floors of the jails. The groups are known by monikers such as the Executioners, the Vikings and the Regulators, and their members often bear the same sequentially numbered tattoos.
The group at the center of Carlo’s lawsuit, the Regulators, is typically affiliated with the Century Sheriff’s Station in Lynwood. It is one of the older deputy subgroups in the department, and it is commonly represented by the symbol of a skeleton in a cowboy hat.
