What happened to you at High Desert juvenile hall in Apple Valley was not okay.

The hall on Dale Evans Parkway, north of town. Two hundred beds. A hundred and thirteen sworn officers. The kids came up from Victorville and Hesperia, from Adelanto, from Barstow. Then, in May 2026, 136 people who'd been locked up in San Bernardino County's juvenile halls put their names on one complaint, and this place is in it. In August, 123 more filed. If you were a kid held at High Desert and a guard did something to you there, this is about you.

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6 questions. Your answers are private and go to one person.

This applies to you no matter what

You told an officer, a counselor, a judge, and nothing came of it. That is what both complaints say happened over and over: a grievance system that didn't work and, in the August filing, logs the county is alleged to have falsified.
You were only there a few weeks. Most kids at High Desert were. The two High Desert accounts already in the May complaint describe three visits to a cell and eight in a restroom. Once is enough.
You got in trouble, then and since. You were in a juvenile hall; that is the whole reason you were reachable. It has no bearing on whether the county answers for its staff.
You were held at Gilbert Street too, or a camp, or you honestly don't remember which building. The questions above let you say so. It's one county, one defendant.
You were a kid there in 2003, or 2007, and 40 isn't that far off anymore. Fine. The year you were born counts for more than the year it happened; the deadline section walks through it.
You're a parent, a partner, a brother asking for someone who can't yet. Reach out anyway.

The High Desert juvenile hall lawsuits: what the public record says, and when

None of what's below is ours. It comes from a county grand jury, from court filings, and from the reporters at the San Bernardino Sun, NBC4 and CBS who read them, and every line links to where we found it. Where it says a complaint alleges something, that is what it is: an allegation the county has not answered in court yet. The one conviction on this list is stated as exactly what it was.

July 1, 2009

The San Bernardino County Grand Jury walked through the High Desert center and described it as four years old: a Probation Department facility north of Apple Valley on Dale Evans Parkway, room for 200 wards, 128 of them there the day the jurors came, 115 boys and 13 girls, most from the high desert. Its one recommendation for the hall: upgrade all the exterior cameras so they could actually record. San Bernardino County Grand Jury, 2008–2009 Final Report.

October 23, 2013

A minor held at the juvenile hall in San Bernardino came forward, and what the minor described, police said, checked out. The officer San Bernardino police arrested was Latavia Davis, 30, county probation, on suspicion of sexual misconduct with that minor, and the hall is the Gilbert Street facility, not High Desert. Her case is on this page because both 2026 complaints say it should have put the county on notice. CBS Los Angeles.

January 2015

Davis pleaded no contest. The sentence, according to court records the Sun reviewed, was 180 days in county jail under "converted confinement", a term that can mean home confinement or electronic monitoring rather than a cell. She's a named defendant in the May 2026 complaint; the boy she was arrested over, 16 then, is one of its plaintiffs. San Bernardino Sun.

December 4, 2023

Four people sued the County of San Bernardino. Sexual abuse in its juvenile custody, they said. One of them was 28 when he told the NBC4 I-Team that a county probation officer had abused him in a county juvenile facility, and that he'd been 10 at the time. The county said it had not been served and would not comment. NBC Los Angeles.

May 4, 2026

Ten former detainees of the Gilbert Street hall had sued in San Bernardino Superior Court back in March. The county moved it to federal court. It came back refiled in U.S. District Court in Riverside, and it pleads sexual assault, sexual battery, negligence and civil-rights claims, conduct between 1998 and 2005. One detail sticks. When one boy reported a guard, the complaint alleges, the counselor he told laughed. The same week, plaintiffs' lawyer Doug Rochen said he was about to file for roughly 150 clients over the Gilbert Street hall and High Desert in Apple Valley. San Bernardino Sun.

May 15, 2026

This is the one that names High Desert. Two of its accounts are from there. A girl of 16 who alleges that in 2007 two officers took turns raping her in a restroom, eight occasions, one standing lookout while the other went in. And a boy, 15, in 2003: a guard came into his cell three times, he alleges, and told him to shut his mouth or he'd be put in solitary. The filing itself: San Bernardino Superior Court, 136 plaintiffs, conduct from 1996 through 2024, three halls named, the Gilbert Street hall, the Youth Justice Center and the High Desert Juvenile Detention and Assessment Center out in Apple Valley. Supervisors ignored the complaints they got, it alleges, hid the misconduct, and the safeguards meant to stop exactly this were never enforced. The county's only comment: it does not comment on active litigation. San Bernardino Sun.

August 7, 2026

Then a companion complaint, this one for 123 more former detainees, filed in San Bernardino County Superior Court. It sues the county and its Probation Department, plus 49 employees named in full or in part and 500 Does. The allegation is that county officials were warned, again and again, and did nothing, and that the cover was falsified logs, threats to whistleblowers, tampering with the surveillance systems. The county declined to comment and Probation didn't respond at all. San Bernardino Sun.

We checked this on September 12, 2026, and the newest thing in it is from August 7, 2026. When something new gets filed or decided, it goes in here within 72 hours, with the link.

Who can be held responsible in a High Desert juvenile hall lawsuit

The County of San Bernardino. High Desert was never a private place; it was, and the county's Probation Department still lists it as, a county facility at 21101 Dale Evans Parkway, staffed by county probation officers on county shifts. A guard who abuses a kid in a cell answers for himself. A county that hired him, put him on the night shift, was told, and kept him there, answers for all of them. That is the theory in both 2026 complaints, in plain words: negligent hiring, negligent supervision, a grievance system that went nowhere. The county is a public body, which changes a few things a lawyer will walk you through. No punitive damages against it. No cap on what a jury can award. And no government-claim form to file first before a childhood sexual abuse case can be brought.

The officers themselves. The August complaint names 49 employees, in full or in part, and the May complaint names Latavia Davis, the one officer with a conviction on this page. Your case does not need theirs to finish first, and it does not need you to know the name. "The one who worked the girls' unit in 2007" is a starting point a lawyer can work from; the county keeps the shift records.

Your deadline: the California statute of limitations for childhood sexual abuse in a county juvenile hall

Until you turn 40, or five years from the day you understood what it did to you, whichever comes later. That is California's rule for anyone abused as a minor, Code of Civil Procedure 340.1, and it is why we ask your birth year. Born in 1987 or later and the door is open on age alone. Born before that? Then it turns on discovery, and discovery is a conversation with a lawyer, not a date you can look up. And High Desert is young. It's only been open since about 2005, so nearly everyone who was ever a kid there is still inside the age-40 window.

One more thing, for the recent cases: Assembly Bill 452 took away the deadline entirely for anything on or after January 1, 2024. And because the county is a public body, one more thing matters: for a childhood sexual abuse claim you do not have to file a government claim within six months first (Government Code 905(m)). That trap is gone. If your years there were before 2009, a lawyer still reads your dates before anyone promises you anything; that is the one bucket the law has treated differently over time.

Plainly: if you were at High Desert at any point from the day it opened, you very probably still have time. One call sorts out the rest.

Your situation still qualifies even if

You never told a soul. Not a cellmate, not your mother, nobody. Most of the 259 people already in these cases carried it for twenty years first.
You don't have a word for what happened, and you're half convinced it wouldn't count.
You had a record then and maybe still do. It has no bearing here.
You were only at High Desert a couple of weeks before you went home or got moved to Gilbert Street.
The officer was a woman. Several of the accounts in the complaints are.
You live in Nevada or Arizona now, or Oregon, or anywhere. The case is against a California county and the firm we work with handles it wherever you are.

Facilities covered

High Desert Juvenile Detention and Assessment Center, 21101 Dale Evans Parkway, Apple Valley · San Bernardino Juvenile Hall, now the Central Valley Juvenile Detention and Assessment Center, 900 East Gilbert Street · San Bernardino Youth Justice Center · the county's probation camps. A different county's hall, in Riverside or Los Angeles? The questions still work. Answer them and say where.

Questions people are asking

Can I sue High Desert juvenile hall?

You sue the County of San Bernardino, which ran it, and that is what 259 former detainees did in two complaints in May and August 2026. Whether you can depends mostly on when you were born and when you were there, which is what the questions above sort out.

What kind of lawyer do I need?

A civil lawyer who handles institutional sexual abuse cases against California counties, not only the individual officer. That is the only kind we work with, and the firm we work with takes California juvenile-hall cases wherever you live now.

Apple Valley juvenile hall, 2005. Is it too late?

Probably not. The clock in California is your 40th birthday or five years after you connected the dots, whichever is later, and one of the two High Desert accounts already filed is from 2003. If you were born in 1987 or after you are inside it on age alone. Earlier, it turns on discovery, and a lawyer decides that, not a form.

Is High Desert Juvenile Detention Center still open?

The county's Probation Department still lists it, at 21101 Dale Evans Parkway in Apple Valley. The county court school on the site, though, closed in March 2016. Whether kids are housed there today changes nothing about a case over what happened there before. A closed door does not close the claim.

How much does a sexual abuse lawyer cost?

Here, nothing. Every case is on contingency. The lawyer is paid only out of what is recovered, and if nothing is recovered you owe nothing. Not for the call, not for the review, not for the case.

Who sees your form

Kerim Eravci · Survivor Advocate · Not a lawyer

I was a victim, and I waited. Not because I didn't know what happened to me (I knew every day), but because I'd decided it was over, mine to carry, nobody's business. When I finally went looking for a lawyer, the answer came back in two words I'd never thought about: statute of limitations. My time had run out while I was busy getting through it.

What that has cost me since is a long story, and I'll tell you the whole thing in private, if you want it. The short version is the reason my name is on this page: I'm here to help people do what I wish I'd done, which is find out where you stand while the door's still open.

I'm not a lawyer. I read what you send, I call you once, on your terms, and nothing gets filed unless you say so. Ask sooner than I did.

Kerim Eravci is not an attorney. He's a survivor.

What happens next. Three steps, nothing more until you say so.

You answer 6 questions. Nothing is filed. Nothing starts.
A survivor calls you, once. Not a robot, not a call center. Someone who has been where you are.
You decide. You find out your options. If you want to stop there, you stop there.

How this works

ME2 Survivors Alliance protects the heart. Licensed California attorneys do the legal work. We are not lawyers and we don't pretend to be.

You never pay a dollar

Every case is on contingency. There is no charge for the call, the review, or the case. The firm is paid only out of a recovery, and if there is no recovery you owe nothing.