Teens didn’t have to eat the monotonous grits and sausages all the time in the Los Padrinos boys hall.
Children like him – the kids are willing to fight – had another breakfast option.
The teenager said several LA County probation officers often approached him about children they struggled to control.
“He has food on his head,” the officer told him.
“It’s basically a bounty,” said the teenager (now 18), who asked not to use his name for fear of retaliation. “We stomp the kids, then we get our food.”
If a teenager gives a be-hit to a cheating child — cursed an officer or refused an order — he said he was rewarded with his pick from n-out fast food smolgas board, Jack in the box, McDonald’s or Chick Phil A.
Concerns about probation officers encouraging fights within LA County’s troubling juvenile halls won the spotlight last year after the Times released the Times showing at least six young people standing in order to hold back Rospadrino teenagers.
The video sparked an investigation by the California Department of Justice, which has resulted in 30 officers being charged with criminal charges this month. Atty. General Rob Bonta said he coordinated or allowed 69 brawls, which he called the “Gladiator Fight” between July and December 2023.
(Allen J. Scheven/Los Angeles Times)
The charges were shocked in several corners, but those familiar with LA County’s dysfunctional juvenile justice system said the bounty and orchestrated brawls were nothing new.
Jerod Gunsberg, a veteran defense attorney who often represents teenage defendants, said he had used the term “gladiator fight” for years long before Bonta did. He called it an “open secret” and said his clients had been talking to him for a long time about young people who receive “food rewards” from executives to attack other young people.
Concerns about the violence staff were given are common among juvenile defense attorneys, but Gunsburg said officers would not be punished because young people are not as motivated by their guards. Young people felt compelled to obey orders that attacked other young people.
“It’s too much to ask to ask children and families who are in serious danger to speak out against those who have all the power above them,” he said. “That’s not realistic.”
A LA County official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the internal investigation said concerns have been raised “for years” about probation officers who allow or encourage fights in the juvenile hall. However, the complaints were never “feasible” as young people do not file a direct complaint or name specific officers.
The LA County Probation Department said in a statement that all staff charged with the indictment were suspended without pay. A spokesperson refused to deal with the conduct described by the teen and Gunsburg.
“The status quo and old ways of doing things are not just options. We need to regain people’s trust and we are trying to do so by supporting dysfunction and keeping people accountable,” the department said in a statement. “We also have to realize that there are many good and solid executives here to make a difference. Their job is tough, but a lot of people are ready to work every day and keep us valued.”
Shortly after arriving at Los Padrino in July 2023, a teenager who spoke to the Times said he noticed a child eating a fast food breakfast.
“I just said, ‘Damn, you’re fighting a lot. How are you eating this lovely breakfast, am I not?”
Soon, the probation officer began pointing out the young man to him who cursed the staff, refusing to act or, in some cases, to get out of the shower.
If he defeats a child, the next morning, staff will deliver a bag of fast food.
“It’s control. They want to run the units, have a smooth day,” said the teenager, who has been in and out of Los Angeles County’s Boys Hall about five times since he turned 14.
A teenager who reviewed a list of security guards charged with his mother at a dining room table in East Los Angeles said some of the people currently charged with felony child abuse had provided him with a fast food “bounty.”
Some of the indicted guards he has never heard of are known to organize fights among children with different gang affiliations, he said.
A security video released last year by The Times shows five probation officers standing vaguely while a teenager took turns attacking Los Padrino’s 17-year-old on December 22, 2023.
Two other officers, Taneha Brooks and Shawn Smyles, both of whom were charged with the charges, can be seen laughing and waving at one point in the assailants.
Smyles and Brooks told five officers (all new to the agency) “They said nothing, they just wrote down nothing and watched when the youth battle took place.”
The five officers were not charged in connection with the December 22nd case. Another officer, Nancy Sostre, was charged with Brooks and Smile. Sostre’s lawyer declined to comment on this article.
The 17-year-old lawyer accused Brooks in court last year of inciting a fight for the victim’s gang affiliation.
All assailants are black and the victims are Latino. According to a lawsuit filed last year, he suffered from a fractured nose and “traumatic brain injury.” According to his lawyer, Jamal Tucson, he was only in Los Padrino for a few days when the beatdown occurred.
Teens the Times, which had previously been housed in the same unit where the videotape brawl took place, said staff would organize the fight when new young people arrive, who were thought to be partnering with gangs who didn’t get along with the kids inside.
“We get a new kid. He’s from the hood. There’s another hood here. We’ll keep all the fights out of the way,” he said. “They were setting it up to take control of the situation.”
If a child is injured in the fight and sent to the nurse’s office, staff told them to say they don’t like the child, he said.
According to the indictment, Smiles told the young man to refuse treatment after the December 22nd brawl.
“We’re a resident of the LA County Probation Monitoring Committee,” said Eduardo Mundo, former county probation officer. “You can’t stop every fight, but it’s not like trying to guarantee every fight.”
Gunsburg said the “Battle of the Gladiator” continued at the Labovenir Hall for at least 15 years he has represented the youth. The client told him about officers who allow young people to fight to counteract the beef.
“It’s as if the probation officer was one of the children,” Gunsburg said. “It’s a scary version of ‘We’re going to meet outside on the bike rack after school.’ ”
The county reopened the Rospadrino juvenile hall in July 2023 after the state supervisors closed the county’s two other halls (Central and Barry J. Nidolph) due to violent circumstances and chronic staffing shortages. Staff stayed at home regularly from work due to fear of their own safety. Dozens remain on limited work or on vacation as they said they had broken the fight due to injuries.
The county hastily moved around 300 young people to the converted Rospadrino, framing them as a new chapter in the agency measuring from one crisis to the next.
However, a teenager who spoke with the Times said the violence continued after he was moved from Central to Los Padrino. He also saw the food awards offered at Central, he said.
When he was new in Central, he said he cursed the officer. The two became friends and split the food.
“It was a Jack in the Box Bacon double cheeseburger with sourdough,” the teenager said. “We shared it with some curly fries and sprites, ice cold ones.”
Atty, California. General Rob Bonta said his office reviewed a six-month video of young people fighting “without intervention, without safety.”
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
The 30 staff members charged with the indictment ran range from rookies to veterans at Hall.
Some, like Brooks and Smile, were longtime detention officers. Both worked at Central before moving to Los Padrinos.
Brooks faces a count of 14 child abuse and one count of intrigue. According to two people who know firsthand about situations where she is not allowed to speak to the media, she was allowed to retire on March 10, a week after the indictment was sealed. A probation department spokesperson said he could not comment on HR issues.
Smyles faces a battery of 10 counts of child abuse, one conspiracy and one misdemeanor. Smyles’ attorney declined to comment. Brooks’ attorney, Robert Grant, declined to comment on the video’s conduct, but said the charges stem from a long-standing staffing crisis and that his client had not committed any crimes.
Smyles, Brooks and Sostre were charged with conspiracy to commit child abuse to arrange the December 22nd fight. Smiles and Brooks were also accused of arranging additional fights. All 30 officers were charged with child abuse.
“The people who took care of them are abusing them,” Bonta said at a press conference this month. His team said they reviewed a video of executives standing as teens fought “without intervention and without attempts to keep them safe.”
But lawyers for many executives said that Bonta’s office had spread the net a lot and cast it too widely, never did anything more than show up for work.
“Obviously there were battles that were going on inside, whether they were organized by staff, or whether they were fighting the kids or seeing staff fight them. I think these are two very different things,” said Tarek Shawkey, representing 51-year-old officer Kenneth Haywood. “It seems they all got together a bit.”
A lawyer for the Probation Officers Union said that while he requested anonymity to speak openly about criminal cases, 27 officers have been charged under the theory that they “didn’t act” to stop violence among young people.
The California Attorney General’s Office declined to comment, citing an aggressive criminal case.
Some lawyers said clients were unfamiliar with halls and were deployed to Rospadrino from other positions due to staffing crisis. At least five people were local officials, some said they had little training to disband the fight, according to the county employee database. At least one officer indicted was a supervisor, a supervisor who was not in the room due to the fight, and another officer was unable to physically enter because he had “light missions” due to injuries.
Another field officer who spoke with the Times while anonymous, said the charges against him stemmed from a battle with five teenagers on his first morning with the unit. There was no equipment, no training or uniforms, but he continued screaming, “stop the fight” until the other staff disbanded the brawl with pepper spray.
It took nine officers less than a year when the fight took place. One of them was 23 when he joined the company in April 2023, but has faced 19 counts of child abuse since his first year of work.
John Myers, a visiting law professor at the University of California Law School in San Francisco, said that officers who did not act could still be criminally negligent because they have a “duty to care for young people.”
The teenager’s mother said she had no idea about the fights that the staff inside Los Padrino was given. However, she realized that her son had returned home with a new desire.
“Yeah, I can fight, I can fight, anyone can fight, right?” she said looking over the dining room table and looking at him. “Isn’t that your attitude now?”
He nodded. After a parole violation, he is back in Los Padrinos.
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