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Probation Officer Faces Charges For Alleged Assault On A Minor
L.A. County DA George Gascón announced the charges Monday.
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Robert Garrova
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LAist
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L.A. County prosecutors are charging a probation department officer with felony assault of a minor, charges announced Monday by District Attorney George Gascón.
Officials said the incident took place in 2020 at Camp Kilpatrick in Malibu and videotape shows Oscar Cross, a supervising offer in the Probation Department, forcefully bending the minor’s leg back towards his head.
Gascón called it a brutal assault on a child who was supposed to be under the care of the probation department.
“I have to admit that I find the conditions of confinement for juveniles in L.A. County deeply concerning,” Gascón said. “No matter what those children have been accused of, they deserve to be safe within the institutions that house them.”
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If convicted, Cross could face three years in jail.
A troubled department
The charges against the officer come as the Probation Department faces a number of challenges.
Just Friday, department officials said a gun was found at around 10 a.m. that morning at Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall in Downey. The facility went on lockdown for several hours as law enforcement investigated the incident.
Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall in Downey
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Robert Garrova / LAist
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Department officials said the firearm was found in “an area only accessible to staff.”
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“No youth had access to it, and nobody was injured,” according to a statement emailed to LAist.
The incident at Los Padrinos came just a couple months after the Board of State and Community Corrections (BSCC) gave L.A. County 60 days to transfer nearly 300 incarcerated youths to a facility in Downey — saying facilities located in Sylmar and near Downtown L.A. were both unsuitable.
That move was completed ahead of schedule, according to county officials who celebrated beating that deadline. In a statement prior to Friday's incident, Guillermo Viera Rosa, the interim probation chief, said the county had gone “from Mission Impossible to mission accomplished.”
Where things stand
But juvenile justice reform advocates and family members of incarcerated kids remain unconvinced that the move will change conditions for the better.
In Sunday’s sweltering heat, Adreena Rochall held a sign that read “End the war on kids” outside Los Padrinos and chanted along with a couple of other protesters. Rochall’s teenage son was recently transferred to the Downey facility. She said she felt panicked on Friday when she learned about the gun at the facility.
Adreena Rochall (L) and Joel Orizaba (R) protested outside Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall on Sunday.
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Robert Garrova / LAist
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She said she learned about the incident from reading a report in the L.A. Times, and that no one from the probation department reached out to her.
Rochall said she and other parents waited three hours to see their children at Los Padrinos. She said others like her are not hopeful that the move to Los Padrinos would change things for the better.
“They are not checking anything properly. They’re putting these kids' lives at risk. And now they’re getting desperate, the kids, they all want to break out... That’s how bad they’re mistreating them,” Rochall said.
The Probation Department said in an email that there was no additional information on Friday’s incident at this time.
The Board of State and Community Corrections did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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