Months after multiple young people overdosed at a Downey juvenile jail, a nonprofit staffer was arrested on Monday with dozens of tablets in his hands.
According to a news release from the L.A. County Probation Department, which is in charge of Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall, Alejandro Lopez was arrested at 11:30 a.m. on suspicion of narcotics possession and child endangerment after he was discovered in possession of about 170 white tablets within the facility.
Before discovering the drugs, the agency said, officers approached Lopez after noticing that he was acting suspiciously. “They are thought to be Xanax, but we need to do lab testing to make sure,” said Vicky Waters, a spokesman for the Probation Department.
California
Efty Sharony filed a whistleblower action, claiming that she was removed from her state supervision position and replaced by a less competent individual three months after she exposed conditions in juvenile facilities in Los Angeles.
According to a statement from the county’s chief probation officer, Guillermo Viera Rosa, this kind of behavior is intolerable and poses a serious risk to the security and welfare of the young people and employees in our facilities. We appreciate our law enforcement partners and our investigative team’s prompt action. We are still dedicated to providing a safe workplace for our community partners, employees, and young people.
According to probation officials, Lopez is employed by Student Nest, a tutoring organization based in Fresno that offers courses in science, math, English, and robotics.
Monday night, attempts to get in touch with the business did not immediately succeed. Whether Lopez has legal counsel was not immediately apparent.
Since the overdose death of 18-year-old Bryan Diazat at the Secure Youth Treatment Facility in Sylmar in May 2023, drugs in the county’s juvenile facilities have been a significant worry.
Days after probation officials discovered a significant amount of Xanax in the hallway, three young people in Los Padrinos were admitted to the hospital this year after overdosing on drugs.
In June, a probation official was accused of assisting in the smuggling of Xanax into Barry J. Nidorf Juvenile Hall in Sylmar.
