Two Los Angeles police officers are under investigation by their department's Internal Affairs division for running a military-style "boot camp" for troubled youths at a Hollywood school on weekends, it was reported Thursday.
The camp, in operation since February, employed aggressive tactics, including taunting and screaming at children by Los Angeles Department of General Services police officers, according to video footage posted on YouTube, the Daily News reported.
One child taking part in a March class looks no older than 5 or 6, though most participants appeared to be teens or pre-teens.
"We didn't know about this program, this wasn't an LAPD program," Commander Andy Smith, an LAPD spokesman, told the Daily News, adding that the department will investigate both the class and the conduct of the two officers.
The Department of General Services is also investigating the class, according to general manager Tony Royster. The program is not affiliated with the department, he wrote in an email to the Daily News.
The Hollywood program was run by two officers, Ismael Gonzalez and Alex Nava, both from the LAPD's Central Division. Gonzalez told the Daily News that he modeled the program after LAPD's Juvenile Impact Program, a department- sanctioned boot camp that also uses military-style tactics to scare juveniles straight.
Read the full story on at the Daily News.
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