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Santa Ana police unit not operating as illegal police gang, independent probe concludes

April 6, 2023

An independent probe commissioned by Santa Ana Police Chief David Valentin has concluded that an elite team of officers sharing skull tattoos and implicated in an off-duty assault allegation is not operating as an illegal police gang.

However, the report by the Playa del Rey-based OIR Group also noted serious lapses in the handling by Santa Ana officers of a sexual assault allegation involving members of the department’s Major Enforcement Team in August 2020.

In all, the report appeared to clear the eight-member team of violating state law against police gangs, which prohibits “rogue” groups that violate the law while on duty. OIR investigators stressed that the group has not been involved in any officer shootings since its formation in 2020 and used force in only 3% of its nearly 2,000 arrests.

“Too often, crime suppression teams have taken their mandate to address dangerous behavior as a license to engage in harassment and excessive force toward targeted groups — often without proper supervision and accountability,” the OIR report said. “We do not have reason to believe this is true in Santa Ana.”

The report, however, warned the team against taking an “us against them” attitude.

While it was completed last month, the report was not released until Wednesday, April 5.

Vallentin, in a video posted on the department’s website, addressed the report, saying, “All of this is a testament to the team’s preparedness, restraint, self-discipline and tactics.”

Off-duty incident probed

Valentin ordered the investigation last May amid allegations, some from Santa Ana officers, that the team created by the chief was excessively violent but was protected by the police brass. Investigations of alleged misconduct by team members were whitewashed, critics said.

They pointed to the alleged late-night assault at a Mexican restaurant in August 2020. Two teenage girls alleged they were assaulted and harassed by men at a table said to be occupied by off-duty members of the MET unit. One girl said someone briefly touched her buttocks as she walked by the table.

Relatives of the two girls called police, but responding officers labeled the victims as uncooperative, and concluded a crime had not been committed.

The incident was investigated by the department after receiving an anonymous complaint seven months later. That internal investigation found that the physical description given by the girl did not match or resemble any of the officers.

Missteps found

The OIR report, however, found several missteps in the initial response by police officers.

For one thing, an off-duty supervisor for the unit was among those at the table when the assault allegation was made, but did virtually nothing.

“A serious allegation of sexual battery had been made against officers under his command. Yet the supervisor did not report the allegation to his agency,” said the report. “Ideally, the supervisor would have called and asked for a police response immediately upon hearing the allegation. Instead, he decided to leave the scene with his colleagues.”

The supervisor, who is not identified in the report, did not report the allegation to his chain of command after returning to work, the report said.

“Had that occurred, the retrieval of surveillance video from the restaurant and the pursuit of other investigative leads would obviously have been more effective,” the report said. “SAPD should have considered the supervisor’s lack of timely notification to have been a performance failure that merited its own accountability.”

Additionally, the report criticized the officers at the scene for not retrieving footage from the restaurant’s security cameras and for writing only a cursory report.

The OIR document recommended that the department demand that all allegations of police misconduct be sent up the chain of command and be thoroughly investigated. However, Valentin said those policies already exist.

Tattoos not illegal

As far as allegations that the unit operated as an illegal police gang, the OIR report concluded that state law only covers “on-duty” actions. The report says that though the skull tattoos are potentially off-putting, they are not illegal. Those tattoos featured an ace of spades on the forehead, used in the military to signify a first kill and contained in tattoos worn by Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies accused of gang membership.

Santa Ana MET officers told investigators the tattoos could not be seen beneath their uniforms and didn’t show an obsession with death or killing. The skulls simply “look cool,” they told OIR investigators.

Other red flags?

The report also mentions challenge coins passed among team members, emblazoned with the Latin words for “let them hate, so long as they fear.” MET officers said the phrase was aimed at hardened criminals antagonized and suppressed by the unit.

The report called the idea behind the phrase on the coins “slightly disquieting.”

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OIR investigators said the tattoos and coins could be red flags that create “an aura inconsistent with the philosophy of community policing or positive engagements with the public.”

“The line between a passionate sense of engagement and overzealousness can blur quickly, and it is not always easy to shift gears between those who are ‘deserving’ of aggressive crime suppression and those who become improperly subject to its excesses,” the report said.

Valentin responded by admonishing officers that tattoos featuring imagery of death in connection with policing could have a negative impact on community trust and could prove dangerous to the officer. He gave the same warning about the challenge coins.

But the chief fell short of prohibiting the tattoos and coins.

Orange County Register

News Details

Santa Ana police unit not operating as illegal police gang, independent probe concludes

Off-duty incident probed

Missteps found

Tattoos not illegal

Other red flags?

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