{"id":380475,"date":"2026-06-30T10:24:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-30T10:24:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/380475\/"},"modified":"2026-06-30T10:24:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-30T10:24:09","slug":"drugs-in-water-jug-caused-l-a-juvenile-hall-overdoses-lawsuit-claims","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/380475\/","title":{"rendered":"Drugs in water jug caused L.A. juvenile hall overdoses, lawsuit claims"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Several teens overdosed at a Los Angeles County juvenile hall<\/a> last year after they drank from a water jug spiked with a \u201cdangerous narcotic\u201d that was passed around in a classroom, according to a federal civil rights lawsuit filed this month.<\/p>\n

The April 2025 incident at Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall in Downey sent three teenagers to a hospital, months after a California oversight body ruled the facility was not a safe place for youths to be housed<\/a>. The suit alleges the overdoses were caused by a combination of an L.A. County Probation Department policy banning youths from having personal water bottles and the department\u2019s failure to properly staff the hall.<\/p>\n

An overdose victim who brought the lawsuit said in court filings that he became lightheaded, began vomiting and struggled to maintain control of his body after drinking from the spiked jug on April 12. The teen is not being identified by The Times because he was a juvenile at the time of the incident.<\/p>\n

Another juvenile in detention passed around the tainted jug, according to the suit. The teen who brought the claim said he remained ill for weeks after the incident, suffering from regular nausea and body weakness. <\/p>\n

Probation officials contend the water bottle ban is common practice and consistent with state law, but the lawsuit alleges it paved the way for the overdoses last April. The teen who overdosed was put into \u201can absurd and vulnerable position,\u201d the lawsuit claims.<\/p>\n

Probation officials \u201cneither installed functional water fountains nor provided individual water bottles to students, nor did they adequately staff the classroom,\u201d the suit said. <\/p>\n

By having a communal jug, the lawsuit alleged, the staff at Los Padrinos \u201cpermitted a juvenile to control the water supply and thereby determine other students\u2019 access to water.\u201d <\/p>\n

The teen who overdosed was allowed to drink at the \u201cdiscretion of a youth who had contaminated the water supply with a narcotic,\u201d the suit claims.<\/p>\n

Vicky Waters, communications director for the Probation Department, said she could not comment on pending litigation. In general, she said, water bottles \u201care not issued to youth due to documented safety, sanitation, and security concerns, including misuse of bottles and the potential to conceal contraband.\u201d Youths in custody have access to drinking fountains and operable sinks in their rooms, Waters said. <\/p>\n

After the April incident, Waters said, probation officials enhanced screening measures at entrances to its facilities, including the expanded use of drug-sniffing dogs and \u201cairport-style body scanners.\u201d <\/p>\n

The suit did not specify what drug was involved, but said responding officers and paramedics gave the teen who sued multiple doses of Narcan, which is used to reverse overdoses caused by opioids such as fentanyl.<\/p>\n

The teen behind the lawsuit told The Times he remembers one of his classmates getting sick after drinking from the same jug. <\/p>\n

The teen also recalled being denied the ability to contact his mother for days after he was hospitalized. The teen\u2019s mother was so desperate for an update on her son\u2019s health last year that his criminal defense attorney, Jerod Gunsberg, made an open plea in a Times article for probation officials to provide information. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf someone from probation ends up reading this, I\u2019m easy to find. … So call me,\u201d Gunsberg told The Times last year.<\/p>\n

A spokeswoman for the public defender\u2019s office, which represented the two other teens who overdosed that day, said she could not comment on how their clients got sick. <\/p>\n

\u201cA safety measure that may have contributed to overdoses is, by definition, a failed policy,\u201d the public defender\u2019s office said in a statement. \u201cThe ongoing pattern of violence and overdoses continues to underscore Probation\u2019s failure to adequately protect the young people in its care.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nine teens and probation staff members at Los Padrinos were hospitalized last July after they were exposed to an unidentified narcotic. <\/a> Probation officers and staff members have been charged with smuggling drugs into the facility in the last year.<\/a> In 2023, 18-year-old Bryan Diaz died of a fentanyl overdose<\/a> at the county\u2019s other main juvenile hall in Sylmar. <\/p>\n

Waters said there has not been an overdose incident at Los Padrinos in the last year. She also said an investigation showed the July incident was not connected to drugs, though she did not specify what triggered the hospitalization of staff members in that incident. <\/p>\n

Los Padrinos continues to operate despite a California Board of State and Community Corrections ruling that it is unsafe for youths. The Probation Department refused to shut down the hall, but L.A. County Superior Court Judge Miguel Espinoza ruled it was \u201cunlawful\u201d<\/a> for youths to continue to be housed at Los Padrinos last year. <\/p>\n

Espinoza has stopped short of shutting down the hall, though, and the state board has no enforcement arm. There were 270 juveniles housed at Los Padrinos last April. There are now 217, according to Waters. The state board will inspect Los Padrinos again in August and reassess its suitability. <\/p>\n

The California attorney general\u2019s office is also seeking to in effect take over the juvenile halls after years of scandals and dangerous incidents under the Probation Department\u2019s watch, but a judge mired that request in evidentiary hearings<\/a> in October that remain ongoing.<\/p>\n

The teen who filed the lawsuit is now out of custody and working to become a barber. But from his time inside, he said, he believes probation officials are indifferent to the health of the youths in their care. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt just keeps going on, they genuinely don\u2019t care,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s crazy how they treat people there.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Several teens overdosed at a Los Angeles County juvenile hall last year after they drank from a water…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":380476,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[6246,6874,153823,4456,48,52,51,1846,47,50,49,96001,51146,153822,153820,153824,11469,360,153821,28345,7164],"class_list":["post-380475","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-department","tag-drug","tag-health-last-year","tag-incident","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-lawsuit","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-los-padrinos-juvenile-hall","tag-overdose","tag-personal-water-bottle","tag-probation-official","tag-probation-staff-member","tag-suit","tag-teen","tag-vicky-waters","tag-water-supply","tag-youth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380475","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=380475"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380475\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/380476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=380475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=380475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=380475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}