Scrawled on a piece of lined paper is a date, April 27, 2023, and the time, 8:50 to 9:51.
“One hour and one minute,” it says. “Too damn long.”
Over the next five pages, the girl describes witnessing a friend being beaten by guards at the East Mesa Juvenile Detention Facility, one of San Diego’s two juvenile lockups.
“(She is) screaming that they are hurting her. (She is) screaming for help for 5 minutes. 8 officers on (her), holding her down. (She is) not struggling, just laying still and telling them they are hurting her.”
“(She) is cuffed the whole time, not resisting,” her friend wrote.
The teen gave the written account to Elizabeth Uremovic, a substitute teacher at the facility who had encouraged her students to speak up if they believed their rights were violated.
Over the next year, Uremovic — affectionately known by her students as “white grandma” — collected more such written complaints.
One youth described blacking out after being “punched and kneed in the head” by probation officers. Another described being kicked, punched and slammed to the ground.
“I still have PTSD from this moment,” she wrote. “I really thought I was going to die.”
Several described being denied phone calls home as punishment.
“I get lonely because I’ve been down for so long and away from my family,” one boy wrote. “Me not calling home every day like I always do worries my people because they don’t know if I’m doing good or dead.”
Last week Uremovic learned that California Attorney General...
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