What happened to you at San Bernardino Juvenile Hall was not okay.

Gilbert Street. That is what most people who were locked up there still call it, whether it was the old juvenile hall or the $62 million building that replaced it in 2011. Since May of 2026, three separate lawsuits have been filed against San Bernardino County by 269 people who say the people paid to guard them there, and at the county's other juvenile facilities, did things to them instead. If you were a kid in that building and a staff member crossed a line, this page 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 somebody and nothing happened. One of the ten men in the federal case says he told a counselor. The counselor laughed at him. Supervisors ignored complaints and concealed misconduct, the 136-person complaint says, and it says that about the whole department, not one unit. Pattern, not exception. That's what the lawsuits describe.
It was a woman. The officer arrested at the hall in 2013 was a woman, and several of the complaints describe female guards. Doesn't count less. Doesn't count differently.
Before the rebuild, and you can't place the year any closer than that. Fine. The ten men in the federal case are describing 1998 to 2005; the state case reaches back to 1996. What actually matters is the year you were born, not the year it happened, and the deadline section is where that gets explained.
You were there on something you did. What you were locked up for has nothing to do with this. The County locked the door and chose who came through it.
You never told a soul. Most of the 269 people already in these cases carried it for twenty years or more before they said a word.
You're a parent, a partner, a brother asking for someone who can't. Reach out anyway.

The San Bernardino Juvenile Hall lawsuits: what the public record says, and when

None of what follows is ours. It comes from a police arrest, court records, and three complaints filed against San Bernardino County, as reported by the San Bernardino Sun, the Orange County Register, NBC Los Angeles and the Fontana Herald News, and every line links to where we read it. The civil cases are allegations; the County has not admitted any of it. One criminal case ended in a plea, and we say exactly what the records say it was.

October 23, 2013

The arrest came from inside. Probation's own internal-affairs unit had opened a case the day before, and on the 23rd San Bernardino police arrested a probation corrections officer, Latavia Davis, 30, right there at the juvenile hall on Gilbert Street, on suspicion of sexual misconduct with a minor who'd been detained there. Abuse of minors in the department's care was, in the chief probation officer's words, "the most egregious violation of the trust placed in us." Fontana Herald News.

January 2015

No contest, that was Davis's plea, and the sentence was 180 days in county jail under what the court records call "converted confinement," which can mean home confinement or an ankle monitor rather than a cell. The San Bernardino Sun reviewed those records. Fast-forward to 2026, and the complaints point straight back at this: her arrest should have put the County on notice, they say, and it didn't act. San Bernardino Sun.

December 4, 2023

Four people sued San Bernardino County over sexual abuse by probation staff in county juvenile custody. The one who talked to NBC4 was 28 by then; he was 10, he said, when a probation officer abused him. Sexual harassment, sexual assault, negligence: those are the complaint's counts. And the County, when the reporter asked? Sharing any information on the matter, it said, would not be in the public's interest. NBC Los Angeles.

May 4, 2026

Ten former San Bernardino Juvenile Hall detainees, abused between 1998 and 2005 by their account when they were 12 to 17, saw their case land in U.S. District Court in Riverside. It had been filed in San Bernardino Superior Court in March; the County had it moved to federal court because it pleads civil-rights claims. Sexual assault, sexual battery, negligence and intentional infliction of emotional distress are the counts. The County "knew or should have known" the staff involved were a risk, the complaint says, and one plaintiff, by its account, was abused more than 120 times in six months. San Bernardino Sun.

May 15, 2026

Men and women both, 136 of them, former detainees, filing in San Bernardino Superior Court. Their complaint starts in 1996 and doesn't stop until 2024, and what it describes across those years isn't one bad officer but a department. Supervisors ignored complaints, it alleges. Concealed misconduct. Let a culture of abuse run for nearly 30 years. Davis is a named defendant in it. The boy from her 2013 case? A plaintiff now. Four places are named: San Bernardino Juvenile Hall, the Central Valley Juvenile Detention and Assessment Center that replaced it, the San Bernardino Youth Justice Center, and the High Desert center out in Apple Valley. San Bernardino Sun.

August 7, 2026

123 more plaintiffs, in a companion complaint in San Bernardino Superior Court. This one puts names on the defendants' side: the County, its Probation Department, 49 employees identified or partly identified, and 500 Does. It says officials were warned, again and again, and did not act. It says logs were falsified, whistleblowers threatened, surveillance tampered with, so the misconduct stayed hidden. The County's spokesperson? No comment on pending litigation. Orange County Register.

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 San Bernardino Juvenile Hall lawsuit

Start with the County of San Bernardino, because that's who the 269 people ahead of you have sued, and it's the point. An officer who abuses a kid in a cell answers for himself. But a county that hired him, handed him the keys, heard about him and kept him on the unit? That county answers for every kid who came after. The lawsuits say that is what happened here. They say the County knew or should have known; that it didn't investigate, supervise or restrict the staff involved; that a locked-up child had no safe way to report anything; and that a 2013 arrest inside the building changed nothing at all. Allegations, all of it. A court decides.

Because the County is a public body, a few things are different, and a lawyer will walk you through them. There is no six-month government claim to file first for a childhood sexual abuse case; California took that requirement away (Government Code 905(m)). There is no cap on what a jury can award. There are no punitive damages against a county, which is why nobody should promise you any. The self-insured County is the deep pocket here, not the individual officer.

The officers themselves can be defendants too. The August complaint names 49 of them. One, Latavia Davis, has a 2015 no-contest plea on the record. Your case does not need theirs to finish first.

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 is later. That is California's rule for anyone abused as a minor before 2024 (Code of Civil Procedure 340.1, carried into section 340.11). It is why we ask your birth year. Born in 1987 or later and the door is open on age alone. Born earlier, it turns on discovery, which is a conversation, not a date, and one a lawyer has with you before anyone promises anything.

Anything on or after January 1, 2024? No deadline at all, under Assembly Bill 452. And that is not an abstraction: kids are in that building right now, and one plaintiff in the 136-person complaint was 19 when it was filed. Because the County is a public entity, one more thing. You do not file a government claim first. Government Code 905(m) exempts childhood sexual abuse cases from that six-month rule, so there is no trap there.

Plainly: if you were on Gilbert Street any time from about 1997 on, you very likely still have time. If it was earlier, or you were born before 1987, you may, and it is worth one call to find out.

Your situation still qualifies even if

You never told a soul. Not a cellmate, not your mother, nobody.
You don't have a word for what happened, and you're half convinced it wouldn't count. It counts.
You had a record then, or you have one now. The complaints are full of people who did. It has no bearing here.
You don't remember the officer's name, only the unit, or the shower, or the storage room.
You were at the old hall and then the new building, or at High Desert too. Say both.
You live in Nevada, Arizona, Oregon, anywhere. The case is in California no matter where you are now.

Facilities covered

San Bernardino Juvenile Hall, 900 East Gilbert Street, San Bernardino, the county's central hall · the Central Valley Juvenile Detention and Assessment Center, the same site since its June 2011 reopening · the San Bernardino Youth Justice Center, as the May 2026 complaint names it · the High Desert Juvenile Detention and Assessment Center in Apple Valley, which has its own page. A different San Bernardino County camp or program, or a Riverside County hall? The questions still work. Answer them and say where.

Questions people are asking

Can I sue San Bernardino County for abuse at juvenile hall?

269 former detainees already have, in three complaints filed between May and August of 2026, and four more sued in December 2023. Whether you can depends mostly on when you were born and when you were held there, which is what the questions above sort out. There is no fee to find out.

Gilbert Street juvenile hall, late 1990s. Is it too late?

Maybe not. The federal case is ten men describing 1998 to 2005 exactly. California's clock is your 40th birthday or five years after you connected the harm to what happened, whichever is later. Born in 1987 or later, you are inside it on age alone. Born earlier, a lawyer looks at your facts before anyone says yes or no.

Has San Bernardino County settled the juvenile hall lawsuits?

No. As of September 2026 the County has not announced a settlement or a claims process, and it has declined to comment on the cases. The complaints are pending. That is different from Los Angeles County, and it is one reason people are still coming forward here.

Do I have to file a government claim before suing the County?

Not for childhood sexual abuse. California removed that requirement for these cases (Government Code 905(m)), so the six-month claim deadline that trips up other suits against a county does not apply. A lawyer confirms it on your facts, but it is not the barrier it used to be.

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.