A top Los Angeles Sheriff’s Deputy official has admitted he recently covered up a tattoo tied to a so-called deputy gang because he was “embarrassed” by the affiliation.

Joe Mendoza, an LASD chief, opted to scrub out the controversial Banditos logo — featuring a skeleton wearing a sombrero — that he had inked on his upper arm decades ago amid a crackdown on the so-called law enforcement gangs still operating within the department.

“I got it covered up,” Mendoza told the Los Angeles Times, adding that in its place he now has a tattoo of St. Michael, the patron saint of law enforcement.

“I’m not a gang member. I’m a family guy.”

The department has long been dogged by allegations that deputy gangs — such as the Executioners, Regulators and Reapers as well as the Banditos — have been allowed to run rampant in precincts and jails.

Mendoza, who joined the sheriff’s department in 1992 and started patrolling East Los Angeles a few years later, insisted he believed the controversial ink he got was a “station symbol” and not tied to any gang-related activity.

“It was everywhere — it was on bumper stickers… it was on hats, it was on T-shirts, it was on the station wall,” he said. “The way it was then, it was the symbol of my station, and it was just all around me.”

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But after he transferred out of the East LA station in 2008 he started to see alarming press coverage about the alleged Banditos deputy gang operating there, he said.

“I had been gone from East LA for 16 years, and some of the things being discussed, I didn’t know those people,” he told the LA paper. “But I read about it and I was embarrassed.”

The shame returned when he went on a vacation in 2022 and he didn’t want to take his shirt off because of the controversial ink.

His admission comes after a scathing report from the Civilian Oversight Commission revealed last year that there was evidence that members of the law enforcement gangs were still running things in some station houses in parts of East LA and Compton.

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“They are a cancer,” the report said of the alleged gangs.

“They create rituals that valorize violence such as recording all deputy-involved shootings in an official book, celebrating with ‘shooting parties,’ and authorizing deputies who have shot a community member to add embellishments to their common gang tattoos.”

When he took office in 2022, LA Sheriff Robert Luna had vowed to “eradicate” the apparent deputy gangs.

He has since started asking questions about group memberships and tattoos whenever those in his department are seeking to be promoted above the captain rank.

Mendoza said he was among those turned down for a promotion when he still brandished his controversial ink.

He was only promoted to a chief role after opting to cover his tattoo, he said.