The teenager didn’t always eat drab coarse sand and sausage at Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall.
For kids like him – kids willing to fight – there is another breakfast option.
The teenager said some probation officials in Los Angeles County often contacted him about the children they were trying to control.
One officer told him: “He has a meal on his head.”
“It’s basically a bounty,” said the 18-year-old boy, who asked his name not to be afraid of revenge. “We stomp on the kids and get food.”
He said if the teenager beats a misbehaving child (cursing an officer or breaking the order), he received a reward from In-N-Out, Jack in the Box, McDonald’s or Chick-Fil-A’s fast food.
Concerns about probation officials encouraging fighting in the troubled teenager halls in Los Angeles County attracted attention last year. Video footage published by The Times It shows that officials were standing at least six young men and took turns hitting a teenager in Los Padrinos.
The video sparked an investigation by the California Department of Justice, ending 30 officials prosecuted for criminal charges this month. Atti. General Rob Bonta said officials coordinated or allowed 69 fights between July and December 12, 2023, which he called “Gladiator.”
(Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)
and indictment Those familiar with the dysfunctional juvenile justice system in Los Angeles County say bounties and well-planned brawls are nothing new.
Jerod Gunsberg, a senior defense attorney who often represents teenage defendants, said he had used the term “gladiator fight” for years and did it long before Bonta. He called it a “open secret” and said his clients have long told him that young people received “food rewards” from officers for attacking other young people, which he compared to “bonus” after professional boxing matches.
Although concerns about violence caused by employees are common among juvenile defense lawyers, Gensberg said officers were not punished because young people were rarely willing to object to their jailers. He said young people were forced to obey orders to attack other young people because they risked their anger of officers.
“It’s too much to expect kids and families in serious crisis to speak out to people who have all their power over them,” he said. “It’s not realistic.”
A Los Angeles County official who spoke on condition of anonymity said he expressed concerns about probation officers who allowed or encouraged fights in juvenile halls “for years.” However, according to the official, the complaints were never “viable” because young people would not directly file charges or name specific officials.
The Los Angeles County probation department said in a statement that the staff alleged in the indictment were not required to pay. A spokesperson refused to address the behavior described by the teenager and Gunsberg.
“The status quo and the old way of doing things are not an option at all. We have to gain people’s trust and we are working to do it by rooting in dysfunction and holding people accountable,” the department said in a statement. “We also have to recognize that there are many kind and solid officers here to make a difference. Their job is tough, but every day is ready to work and keep our values high.”
Shortly after arriving at Los Padrinos in July 2023, the teenager who spoke with the Times said he noticed a child feasting in a fast-food breakfast.
He recalled, “I just said, ‘Damn, you’re doing a lot of battles. How do you eat this delicious breakfast and I’m not?”
Soon, the probation officer began pointing out to him the young men who cursed the staff, acted, or in one case refused to leave the shower.
If he beat a child, the next morning, the staff will provide a bag of fast food.
“It’s controlled. They want to run the entire force and it’s been a good time,” the teenager said, who has been in and out of the Los Angeles County Junior Hall about five times since he was 14. “I thought, I would start jumping on this wagon too. I also started eating, cooking the next morning, I ate well with the other kids in the morning.”
The teenager reviewed the list of indicted guards with his mother at a dining table in East Los Angeles, and he said some of them are now charged with felony children with “bounties” to fast food.
He said some he hadn’t heard of being sued for the Guard, while others were well-known for fighting between children with different gang affiliations.
Security footage published by Times last year showed five probation officials standing up and the teenager took turns to attack a 17-year-old Los Padrinos on December 22, 2023.
Two other officers charged in the indictment, Taneha Brooks and Shawn Smyles, could see laughter, once holding the attacker’s hand.
Smyles and Brooks told five officials — all new to the agency — “They don’t speak, write down anything, just watch youth fights,” the indictment said.
The five officers were related to the December 22 incident. Another officer, Nancy Sostre, was charged, as well as Brooks and Smith. Souther’s lawyer declined to comment on the article.
Last year, the 17-year-old lawyer was accused in court of Brooks of inciting a fight over the victim’s gang affiliation.
All the attackers were black and the victims were Latino. According to a lawsuit he filed last year, he had a fractured nose and a “brain injury.” According to his attorney, Jamal Tooson, he only spent a few days in Los Padrinos.
The teenager was interviewed for the time before being placed in the same department where the videotape fights, he said that when a new youth arrives, staff will organize the fight, and those believed to be affiliated with a gang that doesn’t get along with the kids inside.
“We have a new kid who comes from the hood. We have other hoods here. We’re going to get rid of all the battles,” he said. “They just set it up to control the situation.”
He said if a child was injured in a fight and sent to the nurse’s office, staff told them they just didn’t like the child.
According to the indictment, Smyles told the young man that he refused medical treatment after the December 22 fight.
“It’s unforgivable that they use it as technology,” said Eduardo Mundo, head of the Los Angeles County Probation Supervision Commission and former county probation officer. “You can’t stop all the fights, but it’s different from trying to ensure all the fights.”
Gensberg said that for at least 15 years of his representation of young people, the Gladiator Fight has been in Los Angeles’ Junior Hall. The client told him that officers who allowed young people to fight beef and sometimes even told other young people when and where the fight took place.
““It almost seems like the probation officer is one of a child,” Gisberg said.
The county reopened the Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall in July 2023 after the state’s supervisory authority ordered two other halls in the county – Central and Barry J. Nidorf – Closed due to violent conditions and prolonged discomfort. Staff often stay at home because of concerns about their safety. Dozens are still on limited duties or leave due to injuries, and they say they get to break the fight.
The county moved about 300 young people into a hasty remodeled Los Padrinos, which is a new chapter, an institution that goes from crisis to crisis.
But the teenager who spoke with the Times said the violence continued after it moved from the central government to Los Padrinos. He said he also saw the bounty bounty offered by the central government.
He said he cursed an officer when he was in the Central Newcomer and then he told the other kid to defeat him in exchange for some Jacks in the box. The two of them got along, so they separated the food.
“It’s the Jack Bacon Double Cheese Burger and Sourdough in the box,” the teenager said. “We shared it with some curly fries and sleds in icy.”
California. General Rob Bonta said his office reviewed young people for six months “without intervention, without trying to make sure they were safe.”
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
The alleged 30 staff members from rookies to veterans in the hall.
Some, like Brooks and Smith, are long-term detainees. Both worked in the central government before moving to Los Padrinos.
Brooks faces 14 counts of child abuse and one conspiracy charge. Two people who were directly aware of the situation, were allowed to talk to the media, but she also faced an internal investigation that allowed her to retire on March 10. A spokesman for the probation ministry said she was unable to comment on personnel issues.
Smyles faces 10 counts of child abuse, one count of conspiracy and one count of misdemeanor assault. Smyles’ attorney declined to comment. Brooks’ attorney Robert Grant declined to comment on the actions in the video, but said the allegations stemmed from a years-long staffing crisis and that his clients did not commit any crimes.
Smyles, Brooks and Sostre are charged with conspiracy to commit child abuse for the December 22 battle. Smyles and Brooks are also accused of arranging other battles. All 30 officers were charged with child abuse.
“Those who are accused of taking care of them are abused,” Bonta said in a press conference this month, noting that his team has reviewed videos of officials who fought teenagers, “without any intervention, and nothing trying to keep them safe.”
However, many officers’ lawyers say Bonta’s office sent a wider network of shocking officers who did more than just work.
“Obviously, whether it was carefully planned by the staff, or the kids fighting and the staff fighting. I think that’s two things, two things. “It seems they’re all together.” ”
Attorneys for the Probation Officer Staff Union asked the Anonymous to speak frankly about the criminal case, and he said 27 of them were charged with “failing to act” to stop violence among young people.
The California Attorney General’s Office declined to comment on the grounds of proactive criminal cases.
Some lawyers say their clients are not used to the hall due to the staffing crisis and deployed from other positions to Los Padrinos. according to County staff databasesome of them said they had little training to break the battle. According to their attorney, at least one of the indicted officials was a supervisor who did not engage in any battles in the room and another who had fulfilled “light responsibility” due to injury and was unable to physically intervene.
Another field official who spoke with The Times on anonymously said the allegations against him stemmed from his first morning at the unit’s office fighting five teenagers. He had no equipment, no training, no uniform, and he said he kept yelling, “stop fighting” until another staff member broke the fight with pepper spray.
When the battle occurred, nine officers worked in the agency for less than a year. One of them is the 23-year-old who joined him in April 2023 and has faced 19 charges of child abuse since his first year.
John Myers, a visiting law professor at the University of California Law School in San Francisco, said officers who did not take action may still be criminal because they have “care” for young people.
The teenager’s mother said she didn’t know about the fight between employees inside Los Padrinos. But she noticed that her son came home with a new willingness to argue.
“Like, ‘Yeah, I can fight, I can fight,’ right?” she said, looking at him at the dining table. “Isn’t that your attitude?”
He nodded. He is now back to Los Padrinos after his parole violation.
