On the morning of June 6, 2013, Davis Police Department squad cars rolled up to the group home at 2100 Fifth Street. More than a dozen officers in bulletproof vests made their way past the facility’s memorial planter bearing painted handprints of children. They were no strangers to the location.
For more than a year, officers had been grappling with problems at the home, one of California’s largest residential facilities for emotionally damaged kids. They had repeatedly returned runaways. They had coaxed suicidal teens off rooftops. There were reports of fights, drug use, children having sex with adults. In a single week in the spring, Davis police responded to 74 calls. On May 29, though, there had been a report of a different order: An 11-year-old girl at the home claimed that boys from the facility had raped her. Two boys had been arrested. After months of unraveling, the home had come undone.
[For more of this story, written by Joaquin Sapien, go to https://www.propublica.org/article/rape-drugs-disorder-shake-california-group-home-and-provoke-reform-efforts]
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