Gun is found in Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall days after county announced youth transfers

Just days after L.A. County moved 274 youths out of two troubled juvenile facilities and into the newly reopened Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall in Downey, a gun was found inside the facility, well beyond security checkpoints meant to keep weapons out.

In a statement issued late Friday, the probation department, which operates Los Padrinos, confirmed the gun was located about 10 a.m. “in an area accessible only to staff.”

“No youth had access to it, and nobody was injured,” the statement read. “Security canine teams continue to search the facility. The facility remains on lockdown as we cooperate with local law enforcement in its ongoing investigation of the incident. It is a crime to bring a firearm into a juvenile facility. “

A county spokesperson declined to answer questions about how the weapon was brought in or by whom.

Two probation department sources with knowledge of the situation, who requested anonymity because they are not authorized to speak publicly, pushed back on the department’s official statement that youth could not access the gun. The weapon was discovered in a staff office where youth make phone calls and receive counseling, according to one of the sources, who said that door is not always locked. The unit where the gun was found houses developmentally disabled youth, one source said.

A picture reviewed by The Times showed the handgun that was found inside a case with two magazines that appear to be loaded.

As with adult correctional facilities, probation officers are not supposed to carry firearms inside the juvenile halls. Those who normally carry weapons are supposed to secure them before entering areas where juveniles are housed.

The facility was placed on lockdown for at least five hours on Friday, according to Garrett Miller, president of the union representing L.A. County public defenders, who said several attorneys were among those trapped inside. Miller was unaware of the incident involving the gun until he spoke with a Times reporter.

An L.A. County office of education employee also e-mailed a Times reporter to say teachers were stuck inside the building because of a lockdown Friday afternoon, but said no one had informed them a gun was found.

Some of the probation department’s special enforcement officers, who normally work in the field with adults on probation, were called in to search the premises, according to two sources.

“It’s not just assaults to fear now — who wants to work when you could get shot?” asked one officer who spoke to The Times anonymously, referring to a recent surge in violence inside the juvenile halls.

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Board Chair Janice Hahn, whose district includes Los Padrinos, called the discovery of the gun “absolutely unacceptable.”

“Every single person entering our juvenile facilities is supposed to be searched by security, including all staff and visitors,” she said in a statement. “If this current security company is unable to do that, we should find a new one.”

Hahn, along with most other county officials, had branded the move to the Downey facility as a fresh start after years of dysfunction at the county’s long-troubled juvenile halls. A state oversight board had ordered most youths out of Central Juvenile Hall in downtown L.A. and Barry J. Nidorf Hall in Sylmar in May after a staffing crisis and the death of an 18-year-old from a drug overdose.

“We’ve gone from Mission Impossible to mission accomplished,” the county’s interim probation chief, Guillermo Viera Rosa, said in a statement Wednesday. “The relocation of nearly 300 pre-disposition youth safely and in record time demonstrates what public servants across many L.A. County departments can do when everyone pulls together in the face of daunting odds.”

But the move came amid criticism from some youth advocates that the problems that had plagued the two halls — including drug use and staff call-outs — would just follow the department to Downey.

After the fatal overdose of 18-year-old Bryan Diaz in May, Viera Rosa said he was throwing “all the possible resources” at eradicating contraband that continued to flood the facilities. In June, less than two months after Diaz’s death, four more youths were hospitalized in the span of a few days after ingesting what authorities suspect were drugs.

To keep drugs and other prohibited items out of the juvenile halls, probation staff say they’ve ramped up canine searches, required all bags brought into the facilities be made of a clear material, and limited outside meal orders. Oversight officials had previously found contraband brought into the facilities by visitors pretending to deliver food.

Earlier this month, the Office of Inspector General released a report on contraband entering Nidorf and Central. Between May 6 and June 14, the probation department found at Nidorf 54 “youth manufactured” weapons, a bullet, and three shell casings, among other prohibited items. At Central, the department found 13 weapons.

The Board of Supervisors plans to ask Viera Rosa, along with other relevant department heads, to report to them Aug. 8 on what steps are underway to prevent the smuggling of contraband and drugs.