Los Angeles-The Los Angeles County agreed on Monday to pay $ 2.7 million to a teenager who was attacked by at least six other young people in a youth detention center in the so-called “gladiator fights” who were allegedly provided by probation officers.
The boy’s beating in 2023 in Juvenile Hall sponsors was captured in a surveillance video that also showed several officials unemployed and some of them shaking the hand with the participants in the beating.
A great state jury in March accused 30 correctional officers for their role in allowing and, sometimes, encouraging almost 70 fights to take place between July and December 2023. Officers face positions that include the danger of children and abuse, conspiracy and aggression.
According to the authorities, more than 140 victims between the ages of 12 and 18 were involved.
Attorney General Rob Bonta said after the charges were announced that the attacks were planned.
“They often wanted them to happen at the beginning of the day, at a given time, in a certain place. A space and a time for the fights were created, and the plan was that the fights happen,” he said.
The investigation began after Los Angeles Times obtained and published for the first time video images that shows a 16 -year -old attacked by at least six other young people, who came to him one by one while the officers are watching.
The video was made public for the first time during a judicial hearing during which a public defender for the child, now 17 years old, argued to a judge who was not safe in the godparents and should be released before his trial.
His lawyer, Jamal Tooson, said the agreement was a “first step” by recognizing the “atrocious” conduct of the department of probation of the county of the.
“Our priority must be not only to protect my client, but all children in similar circumstances under the care and surveillance of the department of probation,” said Tooson. “There were demands before this. I personally represent several people who have been harmed in the same installation after this.”
According to a correction action plan written by the department, the staff did not review the CCTV images of the installation, delayed taking the teenager to the hospital and waited too much to notify his parents. To address these problems, the department will ensure that CCTV monitors receive “personnel routinely” and perform random image audits, and develop a protocol to ensure that young people in custody receive medical care and their parents are adequately informed.
A judge ruled in April that the Los Angeles County Department of County Liberated could not continue living minors in the godparents and approved a plan in May to get more than 100 young people out of the facilities. The California State Board that supervises the local correctional facilities has previously ordered that the godparents be closed.
Tooson believes that there is a general “cultural problem” that extends in all facilities of the Department of Probation that cannot address the correction action plan. He has filed at least 19 demands in a federal court claiming problems of physical violence allowed by officials to sexual aggression by personnel members in the youth detention centers of Los Angeles County, he said.
“Until we actively begin to change the mentality and behavior of those who put themselves in a responsibility for care of these young people, I think we will find ourselves in the same situation,” he said.
