Hundreds of plaintiffs have alleged they suffered sexual abuse by detention officers over the span of five decades at different Los Angeles juvenile facilities.
In the class lawsuit filed last week, nearly 280 former juvenile detainees claim the LA County Probation Department failed to stop the rampant abuse taking place between the1970s through 2018, the Los Angeles Times reported.
In some instances, victims said they made other staff members aware of the ongoing assaults, which continued to be ignored in the corrupt system.
The suit was brought thanks to a state law passed in 2020 that gives victims of sexual assault a three-year window to pursue in court despite the statute of limitation.
Among the hall facilities mentioned in the lawsuit, the majority of them now closed, are Camp Scott, Camp Kenyon Scudder and the Challenger Memorial Youth Center.
One of the victims, a man who claimed he was detained at Nidorf Juvenile Hall in 2004, said a male and a female officer sexually abused him and warned him not to tell anybody about the repeated attacks.
The alleged rapists would promise an early release or give him items that could not be accessed easily within the facility.
“On those long days, he just kept on coming,” the man told the Times. “How could you do that to somebody?”
Meanwhile, a woman who was pregnant during the time she spent at a juvenile facility in the county said a male officer fondled her breasts and “buttock[s] while smiling, suggesting it was for her own sexual gratification.”
The woman was only 16 when the attack took place in 2018.
Another girl claimed she was handcuffed to a chair before being groped at Camp Scott in 1999. She said that in two other instances, other girls witnessed her being forced to perform oral sex on a male officer.
If she refused the sexual advances, she was sent to “the hole.”
The now 38-year-old woman said that teachers, nurses and cooks ignored her when she reported the assaults.
“The county has essentially created a safe haven in which these abusers have been able to hunt ... victims in a closed environment much like a bird in a cage,” attorney Douglas Rochen told the Times.
“The fact that it has gone on for as long as it has, despite all of the complaints and knowledge, whether actual or constructive by the county, is a testament to a system that has failed.”
A previous lawsuit filed in August alleged that 70 other girls were assaulted at some of the facilities also mentioned in the most recent litigation.
