LOS ANGELES – A judge approved a plan Friday to move more than 100 youths out of a troubled Los Angeles juvenile hall that has been the site of riots, drug overdoses and so-called “gladiator fights” in recent years.
Los Angeles County Superior Judge Miguel Espinoza signed off on the L.A. County Probation Department’s plan to relocate dozens of detainees from Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall in Downey, months after a state oversight body ordered the hall to be shut down.
The Downey facility, home to approximately 270 youths, most of whom are between the ages of 15 and 18, has been under fire since last December, when the Board of State and Community Corrections ordered it closed because of repeated failures to meet minimum staffing requirements. The probation department has faced a years-long struggle to get officers to show up to work in the chaotic halls…