KEVIN WILLIAMSON: The Gangs of L.A. — A shocking new report suggests that in Los Angeles County, sheriff’s deputies make up some of the most dangerous crime syndicates of all.

This sort of thing appears to be endemic to law enforcement in Los Angeles. For years in the 1990s, the single most dangerous crime syndicate in Southern California was the LAPD, where members of the Rampart Division created a blue crime wave involving everything from falsifying evidence to bank robbery to selling huge quantities of cocaine stolen from evidence rooms to murder.

On one end of California, you have politicos such as San Francisco mayor London Breed and Governor Gavin Newsom blowing off COVID-19 rules as obligatory for the little people but optional for the high and mighty. On the other end of the state, you have a sheriff’s department acting as the goon squad for the elected official at the head of the agency, while deputies mob up like Crips and Bloods. Political enlightenment comes when you begin to understand that, in spite of the superficial differences between Nancy Pelosi’s beauty-parlor antics and the deeds of the East Los Angeles Banditos, they are two manifestations of the same phenomenon.

To the extent that this sort of thing is tolerated — and it is a considerable extent — the people of California have ceased to be citizens and have become subjects. And California is a national bellwether: What happens in Los Angeles today will happen in Tulsa tomorrow.

Also from Kevin as a follow-up: A Few Bad Apples in Uniform.