LOS ANGELES (CN) — Thirty detention services officers at Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall have been hit with criminal charges of child endangerment and abuse, conspiracy, and battery, stemming from accusations that they oversaw and even organized some 69 fights over a six-month span in 2023.
A state investigation was launched after security camera footage of a couple of the fights was shown in a court hearing and later obtained by the Los Angeles Times. The shocking six-minute video shows a common area where the minor detainees are sitting and having breakfast. Out of nowhere, one of the youths charges another and punches him several times in the head. The attacker then walks away and sits down. Four probation officers can be seen in the video; one appears to be smiling, perhaps even laughing. Then, another youth runs into the camera’s frame and begins to punch the same victim, knocking him down and then kicking him. A female officer then appears to look at her watch.
More youths then continue to attack the same victim, one after another, in strangely orderly fashion. After one assault, the probation officer shakes the attacker’s hand.
“The officers look more like referees or audience members at a prize fight, not adults charged with the care and supervision of young people,” said California Attorney General Rob Bonta at a press conference conducted over Zoom. “After a thorough investigation, DOJ discovered that the video was not a one-off, isolated incident. Between July 1 and Dec. 31 of 2023, detention officers allowed — and, in some instances, even encouraged — 69 gladiator fights to occur between 143 youth in their care.”
He added: “We’re talking about vulnerable youth, 143 teenagers between the ages of 12 and 18, young people who are living under the guardianship of the criminal justice system.”
According to the 71-count indictment, unsealed on Monday, two of the officers told their colleagues not to break up the fights or report the incidents, and one of them told the teenagers in the fights not to seek medical attention.
The family of at least one of the teenagers hurt in the fights has sued LA County. The minor, identified only as K.T., says in his complaint that he was assaulted a number of times and that “these multiple beatings caused K.T. to be left unconscious with permanent and debilitating injuries.”
Eight of the officers were suspended following the release of the video, and 14 others were suspended last week.
California’s Board of State and Community Corrections found Los Padrinos “unsuitable” to house juveniles and ordered the facility closed. But the embattled LA County probation department refused the order, in part because two of the other juvenile detention centers have already closed after reports of violence. The LA County public defender’s office has also asked a judge to shutter Los Padrinos. That request is still pending.