In Long
Beach, California, a
group home for troubled children sinks into crisis.
by Joaquin SapienProPublica
photos by Kendrick
Brinson for ProPublica
August 24, 2015
THE TIP CAME IN at about 7 p.m. on Monday July 27. It
was an email from a woman named Patricia Cronan, a
banker who lived next door to a group home in Long Beach, California.
She said the home, run by a nonprofit called Bayfront
Youth & Family Services, seemed to be in a perpetual state of chaos.
Children were escaping near daily and getting violently
subdued by staff in front of her home. She said that children from the home had
threatened her neighbors 10 year old son with sexual
assault while the staff laughed. Whenever Cronan
tried to intervene she said both the teenagers and the counselors who looked
after them would threaten her.