Police investigate Teenagers for Sexual Assaults in Los Angeles

According to police, more than a dozen teenagers are being investigated for a number of sexual assaults against two Los Angeles high school students. According to Los Angeles police Cmdr. Andrew Smith, investigators think that the assaults happened again and again since the end of 2013 at Venice High School.

Eight suspects were taken into custody at the school on Friday morning and the ninth suspect was arrested outside the campus. On Friday only, the 10th suspect surrendered and the remaining four are being searched.

Los Angeles Unified interim Superintendent Ramon Cortines said that Venice High School and the district is going through a very painful situation and crisis counselors would help students at school.

Smith said that they didn't want that suspects make other girls their victim, so they want to arrest all the victims involved in the crime. He said that most of the incidents occurred in the last two months and even this month.

According to Smith, some were forced to perform sex acts, whereas others involved agreement of the individuals. But victims were not mature enough to give permission. Smith said that such incidents are very unfortunate and if there are more victims, they'll ask them to come forward to tell about the incidents. According to the former leader of the school's PTSA, she was not informed regarding any issues at the school prior to the arrests.

According to Linda Patterson Salib, who was president of Venice High School's PTSA till February, "I've been part of the school for some time, I haven't heard anything whispered even. So this comes as quite a surprise. It's not like, 'Oh we knew there was a problem".