2 Teens Escape From County Facility

Two more teenagers escaped from a Los Angeles County juvenile detention facility Tuesday, just as the county’s chief probation officer promised tough action against employees responsible for a breakout from another juvenile center last week.

A spokeswoman for the Probation Department, which runs the troubled county juvenile detention system, said the teenagers escaped from a classroom at Camp Afflerbaugh in the hills above La Verne.

The boys, whom the department did not identify, were still at large as of Tuesday evening.

The escape was at least the sixth from a county facility in the last five months.

It came only hours before probation chief Paul Higa said his department planned to fire three employees and was investigating three more whose negligence allowed four gang members to escape from Barry J. Nidorf Juvenile Hall in Sylmar early Thursday morning.

“It’s my view that the negligence that’s been demonstrated ... clearly violates the fundamental public trust,” Higa told the Board of Supervisors, which has ultimate responsibility for the juvenile system.

“We need to take their jobs,” Higa said.

Higa blamed Nidorf staff for placing the juvenile inmates, one of whom had escaped from another facility the year before, in a less secure part of the campus and then failing to adequately monitor them.

Three of the four escapees remained at large Tuesday, authorities said.

County officials also are looking into why county police officers were not more aggressively patrolling the perimeter of the Sylmar juvenile hall on the night of the escapes.

In yet another case of potential departmental negligence, Higa said Tuesday that four Probation Department transportation deputies who were supposed to be guarding a 12-year-old boy when he was raped by other teenage inmates two weeks ago have resigned.

The assault in the Compton Courthouse is being investigated by both probation and Sheriff’s Department officials.

The recent escapes, on top of the sexual assault and continuing violence at many of the county’s juvenile facilities, has shed more unflattering light on a system responsible for about 4,000 juvenile offenders.

On Sunday, another county juvenile facility erupted in violence as more than 50 black and Latino inmates at Camp Miller in Malibu rioted briefly before the staff could restore order, the department said.

The Camp Miller melee was at least the 12th since 2004 at a county juvenile hall or camp, department records show.

Higa said Tuesday that the Probation Department was trying to identify youths who might have been responsible for instigating violence at many of the facilities.