LOS ANGELES _ The image on the deputy's calf depicted a skeleton in an officer's uniform, wearing a cowboy hat and clutching a smoking rifle.
Jason Zabala said he was inked by an artist who worked at a Sunset Beach tattoo shop and was the 140th person to get the same design. The tattoo, he said, was a proud mark of camaraderie among his fellow peace officers.
But years later, a judge would order Zabala and another Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy to answer questions about whether they were members of a clique and allow their tattoos to be photographed as part of a wrongful death lawsuit. The county paid $1.5 million to settle the case last year. Zabala denied he was part of a clique.
The Sheriff's Department is paying a growing price for its failure to find a solution for an issue that decades of watchdog reports and lawsuits have highlighted as a problem.
The tattoos and questions about cliques are being used to challenge deputies' credibility in court. Officers who are sued over allegations of excessive force have been compelled to answer questions about their ink and allow it to be photographed.
"What goes around comes around," said Merrick Bobb, who was a civilian monitor of the Sheriff's Department for 22 years. He said the persistence of deputy cliques demonstrates a failure of management.
"This is bound to remain an issue as long as the deputies continue to do it," he said.
Few police agencies in the nation have received as much public scrutiny over tattoos and alleged cliques. Similar stories of officer cliques have surfaced in Oakland, New Orleans and the Los Angeles Police Department, but the accounts date back several years and rarely involved exclusive membership.
It remains unclear how pervasive the cliques are. Some deputies defend tattoos as fostering morale, arguing that they don't signify an outlaw culture. Some have also said they have a free speech right to wear them.
The Sheriff's Department, however, has continued to face fresh allegations of misconduct attributed to branded groups. Just this month, three sheriff's deputies and a sergeant were placed on leave in connection with an off-duty fight that some deputies say was a dispute over membership in the Banditos, an East Los Angeles deputy club.
Watchdog panels in 1992 and 2012 exhorted the Sheriff's Department to root out gang-like deputy groups. Then-interim Sheriff John Scott said in 2014 he would share the results of an investigation into claims of bullying by the Banditos, yet the probe has remained confidential.
In July, Sheriff Jim McDonnell launched what he said would be a comprehensive study of alleged deputy cliques. The inquiry came after the Los Angeles Times revealed that a Compton station deputy involved in a fatal shooting testified that he and as many as 20 of his colleagues have matching skull tattoos.
Last Thursday, a judge presiding over a wrongful death lawsuit involving Compton station deputies said the department must reveal whether it's identified all of the deputies at the station who have the identical tattoos. Members of the department's civilian oversight commission Thursday also expressed frustration they had received little information about McDonnell's inquiry.
McDonnell said in a statement that his organization has taken "a very strong posture" to hold employees accountable, including recently hiring a second constitutional policing advisor to promote reforms.
"We are continuing to assess any potential issues that may arise related to employee conduct, as well as personal and professional choices that impact our organization. We have the same concerns as all of law enforcement, the military, and the private sector about how to balance the constitutional right of free expression with what may, or may not be, an indicator of something more serious," he said.
