A top L.A. County probation official has said the agency won’t obey a state order to vacate Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall this month, potentially setting up a costly showdown between state and county officials and prompting threats of legal action from defense attorneys.
“We’re not moving,” Chief Deputy Probation Officer Kimberly Epps told a group of several dozen probation officers last month, according to a recording provided to The Times. “You’re going to have to put our stuff on the curb.”
Probation officials have not publicly signaled their plans, but a refusal to vacate Los Padrinos would defy the California Board of State and Community Corrections, which ordered the Downey facility shut by Thursday unless the county could improve staffing levels. A spokesperson for the state oversight board confirmed Monday that the Probation Department failed a last-chance inspection because it did not have enough officers on site to safely monitor the young people inside.
The county’s refusal to relocate roughly 260 youths in their teens and early 20s from Los Padrinos could lead to legal battles that would mark another massive liability for an agency already under fire by the California attorney general’s office and facing sex abuse lawsuits anticipated to cost billions of dollars.
“I don’t see how the court in good faith can continue to order youth detained at Los Padrinos when you have the powers that be saying they’re not going to improve conditions and they’re not going to comply with oversight bodies,” said criminal defense attorney Jerod Gunsberg.
Luis Rodriguez, chief of the juvenile division for the L.A. public defender’s office, said the agency will ask the courts to release all 107 of its clients housed at Los Padrinos if the Probation Department doesn’t shut the facility down by Thursday, arguing that continuing to operate the hall after the state’s order violates California law.
“We call for the immediate release of our clients to their families or to non-carceral housing that provide trauma-informed care, access to education, and consistent rehabilitative support,” Public Defender Ricardo Garcia said in a statement. “Every day they remain in an unsuitable facility deepens the harm and undermines their future.”
The state oversight body on Oct. 14 found Los Padrinos “unsuitable” to confine young people because it failed to meet state staffing requirements. The Probation Department has long struggled to properly staff its facilities, with officers often refusing to come to work or remaining on medical leave long-term, an issue that played a role in the shutdown of the county’s other two juvenile halls in recent years.
The state oversight board gave the Probation Department 60 days to fix the problem or shut the hall. A probation spokesperson said last week that officials were “confident” the county would make the fixes, avoiding a potentially chaotic transfer of detainees to yet another location.
After last week’s failed inspection, probation officials are out of chances to appease regulators — but also showing no intention of moving to vacate.
Probation Chief Guillermo Viera Rosa has said little in public about a potential move, and several defense attorneys said they had received no guidance from the department about what might happen Thursday.
Adding to the confusion, Viera Rosa sent notice last week to the L.A. County Board of Supervisors that he would step down as chief at the end of the year. He reversed that decision on Tuesday after a closed-door meeting with supervisors, but gave no public explanation as to why he changed his mind.
A department spokeswoman said this week that the agency is “weighing its options” about closing Los Padrinos, but Viera Rosa’s second-in-command left little room for interpretation in a closed-door meeting last month.
In the recording obtained by The Times, Epps told a group of several dozen probation supervisors that she would not obey any order to vacate the facility.
“If our inspection is not successful we are going to come into compliance where we are,” she said, drawing cheers from some in the room.
Jana Sanford-Miller, a spokesperson for the state oversight board, declined to comment on Epps’ remarks, saying they were “unaware of L.A. County’s plan.”
Supervisor Lindsey Horvath, whose district includes another juvenile hall in Sylmar, said she was “angered and disappointed by the continued failures” of the Probation Department, but the board stands behind Viera Rosa.
“It is my hope that Chief Viera Rosa will use this moment to demonstrate his ability to manage this crisis and implement the reforms that are desperately needed,” Horvath said.
The union that represents rank-and-file probation officers blamed the Board of Supervisors for the ongoing issues, claiming the staffing crisis stems from the supervisors’ unwillingness to fund hiring of more personnel.
“Until the Board of Supervisors prioritizes immediate emergency hiring initiatives and meaningful retention strategies, these crises will persist and jeopardize the safety of both youth and staff,” the union said in a statement.
Epps’ remarks in the leaked audio unnerved one probation official who was present and requested anonymity for fear of retribution within the department.
“I definitely have concerns, staff will soon feel they too are invincible and that they can run that place as they see fit,” the probation official said. “They just don’t respect our governing bodies.”
The county’s troubled halls have been a source of frustration for the state for years. The board closed Barry J. Nidorf Juvenile Hall in Sylmar and Central Juvenile Hall in Boyle Heights in the last two years, leading Viera Rosa to reopen Los Padrinos.
But the new facility quickly became as chaotic as the two old ones. In the first month, there was a riot and an escape attempt, and dozens of staff members continued to refuse to report to work. A video surfaced of several officers standing idly by while several youths beat down another teen. Within a year and a half, another shutdown order came.
Vicky Waters, communications director for the Probation Department, said the agency disagrees with the board’s assessment that Los Padrinos needs to be closed.
“We have tried working with the [Board of State and Community Corrections] on viable and aggressive solutions, because this needs to be a collaboration to ensure public safety,” she said in a statement.
Many juvenile justice advocates said the department’s continued spiral into chaos represents a failure of a number of oversight bodies, including the California Department of Justice, which entered into a settlement with the Probation Department to mandate reform in 2021. Little has changed since then.
“This agreement has failed and has failed consistently for years,” said attorney Sean Garcia-Leys, a former member of the L.A. County Probation Oversight Committee. “Having eyes on the situation is not solving it. There’s no shortage of people going into Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall and seeing that it’s unacceptable.”
A spokesperson for Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta declined to say what, if any, action his office could take if Viera Rosa refuses to close Los Padrinos. The spokesperson noted that the state’s settlement with the department places a monitor over all the county’s halls, including Los Padrinos.
Erin Palacios, executive director of the Prisma Legal Center for Youth Justice, said if the department won’t comply with the state’s shutdown order, it should at least work to reduce the population at Los Padrinos, where many detainees are being held awaiting foster care placement or on noncriminal probation violations such as missing school or violating curfew.
“Los Padrinos is a complete shame of a facility for children,” Palacios said. “When you find yourself in a hole, the first thing you should do is stop digging.”
Waters, however, warned that roughly a third of the detainees housed at Los Padrinos are charged with murder, attempted murder, sexual assault or robbery, and could not be “easily released or transferred.”
State regulators appear to have little ability to force the county to follow the order. Counsel for the state board said at a November public meeting that officials were “discussing internally” whether they could sue L.A. County.
“I would fully expect on Dec. 13 that someone — maybe not this Board — will probably file suit,” board member Jeffrey Macomber said. “I fully expect that’s how this would probably play out.”
The board has scheduled an emergency meeting for Dec. 18 to discuss next steps.
Palacios warned that the spiraling conditions at Los Padrinos aren’t merely a danger to the kids inside the Downey facility. Eventually, she said, all of Los Angeles County will pay for it.
“The treatment people receive in there is directly correlated to the treatment we will receive from them when they get out. And they will get out,” she said. “They’re children.”
