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30 Los Angeles County Probation Department officials have been charged with criminal charges following an investigation into allegations that allowed and in some cases encouraged fights between teens within the county’s juvenile hall.
Judge Yvette Verastegui told 30 probation officers that the charges included 69 child abuse, one of the conspiracies to commit a crime, and one misdemeanor battery. Staff were ordered to appear in court again on April 18th.
The unsealed charges Monday afternoon came from an investigation by the California Department of Justice last year after the Times released security footage of eight probation officers, a 17-year-old probation officer, inside Juvenile Hall, Rospadrino, Downey. According to a civil claim filed last year, the teenager suffered from a fracture of his nose and a “traumatic brain injury.” Details of the criminal case were first reported last month by the Times.
Atty, California. General Rob Bonta said at a press conference Monday that the incident included 69 “Gladiator Fights” at the Juvenile Hall in Los Angeles.
The video released last year shows the 17-year-old’s sustained punches and kicks from a series of young people attacking him at once in the “day room” of Los Padrinos. On several occasions, the victims fell to the ground and officers did little to stop the violence. At some point in the video, the young man accuses the victim and offers a running kick so that the female probation officer is out of the way.
The officer was identified as Taneha Brooks in court last year. The victim’s public defense attorney allegedly “incited” the brawl by telling the attacker that the 17-year-old was racist and a member of a rival gang. At some point in the video, Brooks can be seen checking her watch, as if each brawl were timing it.
Another officer — identified in court with Sean Smile last year — can be seen in a video of the 17-year-old home stabbing in another part of the room, waving along with one of the attackers.
Brooks and Smiles declined to comment Monday.
In a written report on the incident, Brooks said the 17-year-old and his attackers were engaged in mutual combat, and each fight stopped when she verbally warned them.
On Monday afternoon, dozens of current and former probation officers could be seen jumping in around the 13th floor of downtown Los Angeles Crown Court.
Retired officers also appeared in support of the defendant, claiming that their colleagues were victims of chronically understaffed and false institutions who fell into impossible jobs.
The December 2023 incident raised questions about the validity of violence being tolerated by officers and the use of probation officers’ fights and other forces within the hall.
The supervisor, who reviewed Brooks’ memos on combat cases captured in the video, said at a court hearing he never questioned her account or reviewed the footage before entering the report into the court file.
The indictment is the latest in a series of controversies surrounding the probation department.
Due to a California state and community amendment, Lospadrino was closed late last year after repeated failures in testing and was deemed “inappropriate” to house young people. The majority of the boys imprisoned in Los Angeles County are housed in Los Angeles Spadrinos as they closed two other boy halls in the county, Barry J. Nidolph of Sylmer and Central Boys Hall in LA.
The probation department has rejected the state’s order to close Rospadrino, saying that members of the state’s board of directors are unsure what legal measures they will approve to enforce it. The California Attorney General’s Office had previously refused to address the issue.
Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Miguel Espinoza is considering requests from the LA County Public Defense Department and is removing all clients from Los Padrino based on the board’s findings that it is not safe for young people.
“The probation system and its fundamental culture are broken,” Los Angeles County public defense attorney Ricardo Garcia said in a statement Monday. “The accountability of those who were unable to protect our youth has long been delayed. There is no justice in the very youth-abusing system that it is entrusted with caring for.”
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