Juvenile camp instructor jailed

An instructor at a Los Angeles County Probation Department juvenile boot camp was arrested Tuesday after making threats and saying he’d go on a rampage “if people didn’t stop messing with him,” officials said.

Lt. Lawrence Del Mese of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department also said that deputies responding to the incident found loaded firearms in the instructor’s car.

Julian Gallarza, 56, a longtime Probation Department employee, was arrested on suspicion of making terrorist threats. He was being held Tuesday night at the Sheriff Department’s Palmdale station, with bail set at $50,000.

Authorities said Gallarza made the alleged threats about noon to another employee at Camp Mendenhall, a Probation Department facility in the Lake Hughes area near Lancaster.

The Sheriff’s Department was called and, after deputies found one or two loaded pistols and a loaded rifle in Gallarza’s car, the instructor was arrested, Del Mese said.

Gallarza told the other employee he was “having issues with co-workers and problems at home,” Del Mese said.

Jeannette Aguirre, a spokeswoman for the Probation Department, said about 100 males between 15 and 18 are housed at Camp Mendenhall and that “at no time were they placed at any risk.”

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stuart.silverstein@latimes.com