Probe Sought in Jailing of 3 Youths

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors ordered authorities to investigate why three youths, who committed no crime beyond their failure to testify against their father, were jailed in juvenile hall for 12 days and brought to court in handcuffs and leg chains, county officials said Tuesday.

Judge Lance A. Ito, who ordered the children taken into custody after they escaped foster care twice, would not comment on the case. The children had been removed from their family last September after their father, Jose Flores, was accused of sexually abusing his 14-year-old daughter.

“These were not suspects. These are not people being charged with anything,” said Cam Currier, spokesman for Supervisor Mike Antonovich, who sought the report. “Yet, they’re being brought into court in handcuffs and shackles. We want to find out what county policy is on this. These kids should never have been put through this trauma and revictimized by the very system put in place to protect them.”

The heads of the juvenile court and the probation and children’s departments will conduct the investigation and present their findings to the board in a month, said Currier.

Meanwhile, the children have been returned to the custody of the Department of Children and Family Services.