Officials probe new case of taped fights at L.A. County juvenile probation camp

Los Angeles County probation officials are investigating organized fights between incarcerated youth in a juvenile probation camp classroom, the second time in recent months that they have acknowledged such bouts.

The new incidents, which came to light when probation authorities discovered three fight videos posted to the Internet, raise concerns about lack of supervision in a department already under federal scrutiny.

Many questions remain about how the youths were able to record the fights, whether any adult was present at the time and how juveniles in a locked facility were able to access the Internet to post them.

Although the classroom where the fights occurred at Camp Ronald McNair in Lancaster is outfitted with computers and cameras, Web filters are supposed to be in place to block access to YouTube, where the videos were posted between December 2009 and April.

“Fights like this should not be allowed,” said Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, who watched the videos and found them troubling. “Obviously, some managers in the organization had to know about this. This is again symptomatic of an organization that doesn’t appear to understand its mission.”

The videos were removed from YouTube late last month after the probation agency’s legal department sent a letter to Google saying that the videos were “illegally produced” and featured incarcerated youths whose identities are protected under the law. (The Times has acquired the videos and made one available to readers after obscuring the minors’ faces.)

Probation officials recognized some of the boys seen fighting, but the youths have not yet been located or interviewed, Chief Probation Officer Donald H. Blevins said this week.

The videos show boys, in some cases shirtless, positioning themselves for the camera before punching, grappling and flailing at one other. In one of the videos, two youths sit kicking each other, a style of fighting particular to probation camps and halls called “locking legs,” designed to avoid security cameras.

Online histories show that the videos contained captions that appeared to refer to gang affiliations. At least two were viewed more than 1,000 times, eliciting many gang-related comments before they were taken down.

One viewer wrote, “Any new fight?” and the individual who posted at least two of the videos responded, “Yeah, I just haven’t had time to upload them.”

In a separate incident, a teacher at Camp Carl Holton in San Fernando was arrested two months ago on six counts of child endangerment for allegedly allowing boxing-style bouts between his students during class in what detectives have dubbed “the fight club case.” Those fights were discovered in 2008 by probation supervisors reviewing classroom surveillance footage.

Both cases came to light amid a nearly decade-long U.S. Department of Justice investigation into possible civil rights violations that include concerns about the high level of violence among the youth.

Blevins said he believed the organized classroom fights at Holton and Challenger Memorial Youth Center were isolated.

“Our job is to make sure that our kids are safe and protected,” Blevins said. “Kids are supposed to be supervised all the time, so if they were supervised in this case, someone should have known these fights were happening.”

It was unclear how the probation agency and the Los Angeles County Office of Education, which employs the teachers and is responsible for academic instruction, lost control of the classroom while the videos were shot.

Justice Department monitors have noted chronic absenteeism by teachers at the Challenger center, where Camp McNair is one of six juvenile camps.

“Teachers need to have control of the classroom,” Justice monitors reported in April. “Until that happens, school is one of the most dangerous places in camp.”

Probation officials notified the Board of Supervisors of the fight videos about the time they were removed. Supervisors met with Blevins and Deputy Probation Chief Cal Remington in closed session Monday and plan to follow up, Yaroslavsky said.

“We want this department cleaned up,” he said.

Investigators plan to rely on interviews and a forensic examination of the classroom computers to determine the date of the fights and identify the teacher responsible, according to probation and office of education officials.

Meanwhile, the American Civil Liberties Union is pursuing a lawsuit alleging that the academic program at Challenger violates the boys’ civil rights. One of the plaintiffs in the case was awarded a high school diploma from the school even though he is illiterate.

“These incidents,” ACLU attorney David Sapp said of the videotaped fights, “highlight the need for an urgent overhaul of the rehabilitative and educational program at Challenger.”

molly.hennessy-fiske@latimes.com

garrett.therolf@latimes.com