Poor Mojo's Newswire

Deputies at an L.A. County Sheriff’s Office are claiming that their bosses are members of white supremacist gangs who have subverted at least one FBI investigation. According to the deputies, law enforcement officers have even gone so far as to hide a suspect from the FBI out of their allegiance to a white supremacist group. Two L.A. County deputies have filed a lawsuit claiming that their department is a hotbed for white supremacists and that members of the department covered up a crime involving a skinhead. “An inappropriate relationship exists between certain LASD personnel and various inmate jail gangs, especially white supremacist,” read the complaint filed by deputies Michael Rathbun and James Sexton. “LASD personnel use these jail gangs as proxies or agents to retaliate against other LASD deputies and inmates. Within these inappropriate alliances, the gangs are given certain privileges that are otherwise legally precluded from them,” continued the complaint, filed in federal court against the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department. Lt. Greg Thompson, who is a defendant in the suit, is allegedly a member of a racist gang called “the Vikings.” The deputies accuse the LASD of hiding an inmate “in an effort to obstruct a federal investigation.” The deputies say that in February of 2012, they learned from an informant at Operation Safe Jails (OSJ) that Deputy Joseph Britton was associated with a powerful white supremacist gang. “At all relevant times, certain members of OSJ associated with, and cooperated with, certain jail gangs, including partaking in illicit activities. Sheriff Baca and/or Undersheriff Tanaka knew or should have known about these improper relationships, but took no action to stop it and implicitly ratified the improper conduct” read the complaint. “LASD personnel, using jail gangs as their agents, labeled Rathbun and Sexton as ‘race traitors,” the complaint states. The deputies say they only came forward due to months of harassment and threats from officials.

The U.S. State Department, which spends millions of taxpayer dollars a year on the Honduran National Police, has assured Congress that money only goes to specially vetted and trained units that don’t operate under the direct supervision of a police chief once accused of extrajudicial killings and “social cleansing.” But The Associated Press has found that all police units are under the control of Director General Juan Carlos Bonilla, nicknamed the “Tiger,” who in 2002 was accused of three extrajudicial killings and links to 11 more deaths and disappearances. He was tried on one killing and acquitted. The rest of the cases were never fully investigated. … With 91 murders per 100,000 people, the small Central American nation is often called the most violent in the world. An estimated 40 percent of the cocaine headed to the U.S. — and 87 percent of cocaine smuggling flights from South America — pass through Honduras, according to the State Department. The allegations against Bonilla, along with other concerns about police and military killings, prompted the U.S. Congress to freeze an estimated $30 million in Honduran aid last August. Most has been restored under agreements with the U.S. Department of State over the monitoring of Honduran operations receiving U.S. money.

Right-wing funders and business industrialists David and Charles Koch may purchase the Tribune Company newspapers, which include the Chicago Tribune, Baltimore Sun, and the Los Angeles Times. The brothers are “interested in the clout they could gain through the Times’ editorial pages,” the Hollywood Reporter notes. Responding to the report, a spokesperson for Koch told the website that the brothers are “constantly exploring profitable opportunities in many industries and sectors”: Missy Cohlmia, a spokeswoman for Koch Companies Public Sector, LLC, issued the following statement to THR: “As an entrepreneurial company with 60,000 employees around the world, we are constantly exploring profitable opportunities in many industries and sectors. So, it is natural that our name would come up in connection with this rumor. We respect the independence of the journalistic institutions referenced in today’s news stories, but it is our long-standing policy not to comment on deals or rumors of deals we may or may not be exploring. ” The Los Angeles Weekly was the first to report that the Kochs could be mulling the purchase of the newspaper assets, which make up $623 million of the company’s $7 billion holdings. The Koch brothers own Koch Industries, the second-largest private company in America, and bankroll a network of Tea Party groups and Republican political war chests.