LOS ANGELES (AP) — Los Angeles County on Monday agreed to pay $2.7 million to a teenager who was attacked by at least six other young people at a juvenile detention center in so-called “gladiator fights” that were allegedly facilitated by probation officers.
The boy's beating in 2023 at Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall was captured on surveillance video that also showed several officials standing idly by and some of them shaking hands with the participants in the beating.
A state grand jury in March charged 30 correctional officers for their role in allowing and sometimes encouraging nearly 70 fights to take place between July and December 2023. The officers face charges including child endangerment and abuse, conspiracy, and battery.
More than 140 victims between the ages of 12 and 18 were involved, according to authorities.
Attorney General Rob Bonta said after the charges were announced that it seemed the attacks were planned.
“They often wanted them to happen at the beginning of the day, in a certain time, in a certain place. A space and a time was created for the fights, and the plan was for the fights to happen,” he said.
The investigation began after the Los Angeles Times first obtained and published video footage that shows a then-16-year-old being attacked by at least six other young people, who came at him one by one as officers stand by watching.
The video was first made public during a court hearing during which a public defender for the boy, now 17, argued to a judge that he was not safe at Los Padrinos and should be released ahead of his trial.
His attorney, Jamal Tooson, said the settlement was a “first step” in recognizing the “egregious” conduct of the LA County Probation Department.
“Our priority needs to be not just protecting my client but all children in similar circumstances under the care and watch of the probation department,” Tooson said. “There were lawsuits prior to this. I personally represent several individuals who've been harmed at the same facility after this.”
According to a correction action plan written by the department, staff failed to review CCTV footage of the facility, delayed taking the teen to the hospital, and waited too long to notify his parents. To address these issues, the department will ensure CCTV monitors are “staffed routinely” and conduct random footage audits, and develop a protocol for making sure young people in custody are given medical care and their parents are informed appropriately.
A judge ruled in April that the LA County Probation Department could not continue housing juveniles at Los Padrinos and approved a plan in May to move more than 100 youths out of the facility. California's state board overseeing local correctional facilities has previously ordered Los Padrinos to be shut down.
Tooson believes there is a pervasive “culture problem” extending throughout the probation department's facilities that cannot be addressed by the correction action plan. He has filed at least 19 lawsuits in federal court alleging issues from physical violence allowed by officials to sexual assault by staff members in LA County's youth detention centers, he said.
“Until we actively start changing the mindset and behavior of those who are put into a caretaking responsibility of these youth, I think we're going to find ourselves in the same situation,” he said.
FILE - California Attorney General Rob Bonta speaks during a press conference on April 16, 2025, in Ceres, Calif. (AP Photo/Noah Berger, File)
NEW YORK (AP) — Thousands of New York City nurses returned to the picket lines Tuesday as their strike targeting some of the city’s leading hospital systems entered its second day.
Union officials say roughly 15,000 nurses walked off the job Monday morning at multiple campuses of three hospital systems: NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia, Montefiore Medical Center and Mount Sinai.
The affected hospitals have hired droves of temporary nurses to try to fill the labor gap. Both nurses and hospital administrators have urged patients not to avoid getting care during the strike.
New York City, like the U.S. as a whole, has had an active flu season. The city logged over 32,000 cases during the week ending Dec. 20 — the highest one-week tally in at least 20 years — though numbers have since declined, the Health Department said last Thursday.
Roy Permaul, an intensive care unit nurse who was among those picketing in front of Mount Sinai's flagship campus in Manhattan, said he and his colleagues are prepared to walk off the job as long as needed to secure a better contract.
But Dania Munoz, a nurse practitioner at Mount Sinai, stressed that the union’s fight wasn’t just about better wages.
“We deserve fair pay, but this is about safety for our patients, for ourselves and for our profession,” the 31-year-old Bronx resident said. “The things that we’re fighting for, we need. We need health care. We need safety. We need more staffing.”
The New York State Nurses Association said Tuesday that none of the hospitals have agreed to additional bargaining sessions with the union since their last meetings on Sunday.
It also complained that Mount Sinai, which operates seven hospitals, unlawfully fired three nurses hours after the strike started and improperly disciplined 14 others who had spoken out about workplace violence or discussed the union and contract negotiations with their colleagues.
Mount Sinai spokespersons said Tuesday the claims were “not accurate” and that they would provide more information later. Mt. Sinai has said approximately 20% of its nurses reported for work on the first day of the strike rather than picketing.
Meanwhile, Montefiore Medical Center said it has “not canceled even one patient’s access to care” during the work stoppage. The city Emergency Management Department said it hasn’t seen major impacts to patient care so far.
The hospital system also criticized unionized nurses for seeking “troubling proposals” such as demanding that nurses not be terminated, even if found to be compromised by drugs or alcohol while on the job.
The union said Montefiore was “blatantly mischaracterizing” one of its basic workplace proposals, which would have added protections for nurses dealing with substance use disorders and which has already been adopted in other hospitals around the state.
The labor action comes three years after a similar strike forced medical facilities to transfer some patients and divert ambulances.
As with the 2023 labor action, nurses have pointed to staffing issues as a major flashpoint, accusing the big-budget medical centers of refusing to commit to provisions for safe, manageable workloads.
The private, nonprofit hospitals involved in the current negotiations say they’ve made strides in staffing in recent years and have cast the union’s demands as prohibitively expensive.
On Monday, the city's new mayor, Zohran Mamdani, stood beside nurses on a picket line outside NewYork-Presbyterian, praising the union’s members for seeking “dignity, respect and the fair pay and treatment that they deserve.”
Nurses strike in front of Montefiore Hospital in the Bronx borough of New York, Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
Nurses strike in front of Montefiore Hospital in the Bronx borough of New York, Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
Nurses strike outside New York-Presbyterian Hospital, Monday, Jan. 12, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)
