LA County Sheriff's Department pays price as clandestine deputy cliques persist

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