30 County officials of the County were charged with “gladiator fights” minor

Thirty officers of the Los Angeles County Probation Service were charged with criminal accusations following an investigation into the allegations they authorized – and in certain cases encouraged – fights between adolescents within the county’s juvenile rooms.

Justice Yvette Verastegui told 30 provision officials that the accusations included 69 childhood mistreatment, a conspiracy chief to commit a crime and a battery leader for offense. The staff were sentenced to appear in court on April 18.

The accusation acts, not sealed on Monday afternoon, are the result of an investigation by the California Ministry of Justice launched after the Times published security images last year of eight standing agents while a group of teenagers attacked a young 17-year-old inside Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall in Downey. The adolescent underwent a broken nose and a “traumatic cerebral lesion”, according to a civil complaint filed last year. The details of the criminal case were reported for the first time by the Times last month.

California Atty. General Rob Bonta said at a press conference on Monday that the case involved 69 “gladiator fights” in the juvenile rooms of Los Angeles.

The video published last year shows that the 17 -year -old supported punches and kicks of a series of young people who attack him both in a “day room” in Los Padrinos. At more than one opportunity, the victim falls on the ground while the police do not do much to stop violence. At one point in the video, a woman responsible for probation departs while a young person accused the victim and delivers a kick.

This officer was identified in court last year as Taneha Brooks. The victim’s public defender alleged that she had “encouraged” the fights by telling the attackers that the 17 -year -old was a racist and a member of a rival gang. At some point in the video, Brooks can be seen in the process of checking your watch, as if you are holding each fight.

Another officer – identified in court last year like Shawn Smyles – can be seen in the video shaking hands with one of the attackers while 17 -year -olds crumble under a burst of punches in another part of the room.

Brooks and Smyles refused to comment on Monday.

In her written report on the incident, Brooks said that the 17 -year -old woman and her attackers were engaged in a mutual fight and that each fight stopped when she gave a verbal warning.

Dozens of current and ancient probation officers could be seen wet around the 13th floor of the Palais de Justice de downtown Los Angeles on Monday afternoon, many of them still do not know what they were accused of or why.

Retired police also appeared to support the defendants, arguing that their colleagues were victims of an agency in chronic and poorly managed sub-employed who placed them in impossible work.

The December 2023 incident raised questions about the question of whether violence has been tolerated by officers and the validity of the reports of probation agents on combat and other strength uses in theaters.

A supervisor who examined Brooks’ notes on the combat incident captured on video said during a legal hearing that he had never questioned his account or examined the images before participating in his report in a judicial file.

The accusation acts are the last of a series of controversies surrounding the probation service.

The California board of directors and community corrections ordered Los Padrinos to close at the end of last year after it has repeatedly failed inspections and was deemed “unsuitable” at the Youth House. The majority of minors incarcerated in the County of Los Angeles are hosted in Los Padrinos because the board of directors previously closed the other two juvenile rooms of the county – Barry J. Nidorf in Sylmar and the central juvenile center in Los Angeles – following an increase in violence and instability in the rooms exacerbated by a personnel crisis.

The probation department refused the order of the State to close the Los Padrinos, and the members of the Council of State declared that they did not know what legal recourse they had to apply it. The California prosecutor’s office previously refused to solve the problem.

The judge of the Superior Court of the County of Los Angeles, Miguel Espinoza, weighs a request from the office of the public defender of the County of Los Angeles to withdraw all his customers of Los Padrinos, on the basis of the conclusion of the board of directors that this is dangerous for young people.

“The probation system and its underlying culture are broken,” said Los Angeles County Public Prun, Ricardo Garcia on Monday. “The responsibility of those who have not protected our youth have been expected for a long time – there is no justice in a system that abuses the same young people with whom he is responsible for dealing.”