Report: Teens exploited low staffing in juvenile hall escape attempt

Teenage detainees at Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall exploited the facility's understaffing in November to execute a coordinated escape attempt, during which one youth managed to scale a wall and reach a waiting car before he was apprehended, according to a new report from the Los Angeles County Office of Inspector General.

The escape attempt Nov. 3 lasted just 12 minutes, but exposed points of failure at the renovated Downey facility housing nearly 300 juvenile detainees every day.

Staffing levels were dangerously low as the shift began that night.

The department had scheduled 100 staff members — the minimum needed to run Los Padrinos — for the shift, but only 40 showed up. The facility's supervisors managed to cobble together a team of 64 to manage the juvenile hall's 18 units by pulling officers from other assignments, according to the March 7 report to the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors.

In Unit X2, where the escape attempt began, two officers were overseeing 14 youths, slightly above the state's requirement for one officer per 10 youth. At the time of the escape, one officer had gone to the bathroom and left the other alone with the youth, in violation of department policy and state law, the inspector general found.

“The Department did not staff the unit properly, assigning too few staff to meet the required ratio and assigning staff who lacked proper training and experience,” wrote Max Huntsman, the inspector general.

At 7:52 p.m., one detainee asked the remaining probation officer, who typically was deployed in the field and had never worked in the juvenile halls, to unlock his room. As the officer unlocked the door, the youth grabbed the keys, while another youth pulled the officer away.

A senior detention services officer, who had been sitting in the unit's office, intercepted the key-carrying youth in a breezeway, but a group of five other juveniles pushed out of the unit and attacked the officer. The juveniles