Just days after L.A. County moved 274 youths out of two troubled juvenile facilities and into the newly reopened Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall in Downey, a gun was found in a section of the building that kids were able to access, two sources told The Times on Friday.
The officials spoke to The Times on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak to the media.
A picture reviewed by The Times showed the handgun that was found inside a case with two magazines that appear to be loaded. One official said the gun was discovered in a staff office at the center of a unit that houses developmentally disabled youth.
“Youth make phone calls there. They get counseled there,” one source said.
As with adult correctional facilities, probation officers are not supposed to carry firearms inside the juvenile halls. Those who normally carry weapons are supposed to secure them before entering areas where juveniles are housed.
It was not immediately clear how the gun was brought in or who was responsible for it. The probation department said it was looking into The Times’ inquiry about the gun.
The facility was placed on lockdown for several hours on Friday, one official said. Special enforcement officers, who normally work with adult probationers in the field, were called in to search the premises, according to two sources.
“It’s not just assaults to fear now — who wants to work when you could get shot?” asked one officer, referring to a recent surge in violence inside the juvenile halls.
Board Chair Janice Hahn, whose district includes Los Padrinos, called the discovery of the gun “absolutely unacceptable.”
“Every single person entering our juvenile facilities is supposed to be searched by security, including all staff and visitors,” she said in a statement. “If this current security company is unable to do that, we should find a new one.”
Hahn, along with most other county officials, had branded the move to the Downey facility as a fresh start after years of dysfunction at the county’s long-troubled juvenile halls. A state oversight board had ordered most youths out of Central Juvenile Hall in downtown L.A. and Barry J. Nidorf Hall in Sylmar in May after a staffing crisis and the death of an 18-year-old from a drug overdose.
“We’ve gone from Mission Impossible to mission accomplished,” the county’s interim probation chief, Guillermo Viera Rosa, said in a statement Wednesday. “The relocation of nearly 300 pre-disposition youth safely and in record time demonstrates what public servants across many LA County departments can do when everyone pulls together in the face of daunting odds.”
But the move came amid criticism from some youth advocates that the problems that had plagued the two halls — including drug use and staff call-outs — would just follow the department to Downey.
This story originally appeared on LA Times
