Chief Adolfo Gonzales of the Los Angeles County Probation Department was fired by a unanimous vote on Tuesday by the Board of Supervisors, ending a tumultuous two-year term.
Gonzales was named the county’s top probation officer in February 2021, after leading the San Diego County Probation Department for five years. The department was already in trouble when he took over. The California Department of Justice reached a settlement with the agency to reform the treatment of juveniles a month before Gonzales was hired. But it’s been the subject of near-constant controversy throughout his run as chef.
In September 2021, the Board of State and Community Corrections ruled that the probation department was “unfit” to care for juveniles, the first time in the state’s history that the oversight agency issued such a ruling against a juvenile facility. When such rulings occur, an agency has 60 days to implement an action plan to improve conditions or the state may order that juveniles be transferred to housing beyond the reach of the parole department.
Fearing another negative ruling from the BSCC in early 2022, Gonzales and other executives cleared Central Juvenile Hall and crammed nearly every teen into probation unit custody at Barry J. Nidorf Hall in Sylmar, a chaotic and ill-planned move that resulted in violence and injuries to both officers and children.
Gonzales and Karen Fletcher, his second-in-command, had repeatedly refuted reports in The Times that the transfer was made to evade a BSCC investigation, but the LA County Office of the Inspector General confirmed the newspaper’s reporting late last year.
Throughout most of 2022, probation officers often refused to come to work for fear of violence in Central and Nidorf, leading to major staff shortages and frequent closures of both facilities. The situation led to a significant spike in fighting, injuries to staff and had major implications for the mental health of the youths the department is believed to be helping rehabilitate, a Times investigation found last year.
The last straw for Gonzales seemed to come last month, when The Times released surveillance footage of officers forcibly detaining a 17-year-old at Camp Kilpatrick. The footage showed officers grabbing the teen by every limb and his neck and holding him to a bed after an argument. Once the teen seemed subdued, an overseer named Oscar Cross bent the child’s legs toward his head and yelled “stop resisting” as the boy screamed for his mother.
The Los Angeles County Inspector General and District Attorney are investigating the footage. Late last month, four members of the Board of Supervisors and the Probation Committee called for Gonzales to resign.
On Monday, Gonzales told a group of senior probation officers that he would not resign and that the board should fire him, according to a police source who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the situation candidly.
