Police Shootings / Possible Abuse Threads [merged]

The Los Angeles county probation department has placed more than 60 officers on leave for misconduct in an escalating scandal surrounding claims of excessive force, sexual abuse and endangerment of imprisoned youth.

The probation department, which runs the juvenile halls that have been plagued by claims of physical and sexual abuse for years, announced Monday that 66 officers have been put on “administrative leave” since January for a wide range of offenses.

Thirty-nine of the officers were accused of “general misconduct”, the department said, including excessive force, child abuse or endangerment, possession of contraband and negligent supervision. Eighteen were put on leave for “suspected sexual misconduct”, and nine officers were removed after they were arrested for offenses unrelated to their employment.

Some of the officers put on leave from the nation’s largest probation agency also worked in the department’s adult division, which oversees people released on probation.

The announcement follows a long-running campaign by youth advocates to permanently shutter the Los Padrinos juvenile hall due to extensively documented abuse cases and the failure of reform efforts to prevent the violence.

In April, the Los Angeles Times obtained footage from inside the youth jail revealing that officers stood by as six youths assaulted a 17-year-old, some of the officers appearing to laugh and shake hands with those who were beating the victim. The 17-year-old suffered a broken nose, but was not taken for medical treatment for several days, the teenager’s lawyer said at the time.

After California passed a law lifting the statute of limitations for child sexual abuse cases, hundredsof formerly incarcerated youth have also filed claims alleging they were assaulted by LA probation officers behind bars from the 1970s to more recent years.

One woman who recently spoke out for the first time about being abused in the 1990s in LA juvenile hall told the Guardianthat she felt she couldn’t report it at the time and that she is still grappling with the trauma decades later…….

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news...obation-officers-leave?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other