Los Angeles, CA: The Los Angeles County Probation Department has conducted an internal assessment and has placed four probation officers at Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall on administrative leave.
Reports of “youth-on-youth violence” at the troubled Downey juvenile detention center prompted the suspensions, according to authorities.
These suspensions are part of a larger attempt to “root out” employees who are responsible for maintaining a “culture of violence, drugs, or abuse” in the county’s juvenile prisons, according to Guillermo Viera Rosa, chief of the probation department.
“Although these incidents only affect a small portion of our staff, they go against our fundamental principles and hinder our capacity to fulfill our responsibility to create a secure and supportive setting for the recovery of the youth entrusted to our care,” Viera Rosa stated in a press release published on Friday.
He went on to say that he will “dig deeper into potential wrongdoing” and move swiftly to eradicate anything that fosters the alleged violent culture.
Prior to her appointment as chief of L.A. County’s Probation Department, Viera Rosa served as the “chief strategist” for the county’s juvenile operations, a position she held after state lawmakers conducted harsh evaluations of the facility’s circumstances. He has pledged to “wipe the slate clean” and reinvigorate the county’s approach to juvenile confinement during his time in office.
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The relocation of hundreds of juvenile detainees from other outdated institutions to Los Padrinos, which underwent renovations and reopened last summer, was arguably the most significant development that occurred during his tenure as head of the Probation Department.
Since then, a riot broke out after probation authorities found a pistol inside the prison, which led to the escape of one juvenile and another adult convict many months later.
The union representing the probation officers in Sylmar’s Barry J. Nidorf Juvenile Hall placed part of the blame on the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors for the teen’s overdose death in custody in May. A hiring freeze, according to union representatives, caused a large number of officer openings.
A December incident involving eight probation officers and multiple juvenile inmates at the facility led to their administrative absence earlier this year. The Los Angeles County Office of the Public Defender stated that the video showed probation personnel “encouraging violence between detained youth,” however some have criticized the publication of the video, calling it a juvenile “fight club.”
The California Attorney General’s Office has taken over the investigations of the 12 suspended officers and they are still ongoing.
Reference: KTLA