A 12-year-old has been arrested in reference to the demise of a classmate who was hit within the head with a steel water bottle throughout an alleged bullying incident at a Los Angeles college, authorities mentioned Friday.
The juvenile, whose age and gender haven’t been made public, was arrested on suspicion of homicide on Thursday, Los Angeles Police Officer Charles Miller mentioned. The arrest stems from the Feb. 25 demise of 12-year-old Khimberly Zavaleta Chuquipa.
The Los Angeles County District Legal professional’s workplace, which can be answerable for submitting costs, mentioned Friday that the case was below investigation.
Miller mentioned that he couldn’t launch another info as a result of each the sufferer and the suspect are juveniles. Khimberly’s household says she was struck within the head on Feb. 17 throughout a bullying incident at Reseda Constitution Excessive Faculty, which additionally features a center college.
“This arrest is a vital step towards accountability, however an arrest alone doesn’t equal justice and doesn’t reply the bigger query of how this was allowed to occur within the first place,” Robert Glassman, the household’s legal professional, mentioned in e-mail Friday.
Khimberly was in a hallway on the college’s campus when she was struck within the head with a steel water bottle whereas attempting to assist her older sister, Sharon Zavaleta, who was being bullied by a gaggle of scholars, the household mentioned within the wrongful-death declare filed final month in opposition to the Los Angeles Unified Faculty District.
She was taken to Valley Presbyterian Hospital, the place she was evaluated and launched the identical day. Three days later, she was taken to UCLA Mattel Youngsters’s Hospital, the place she was positioned in an induced coma and underwent emergency mind surgical procedure to attempt to cease a hemorrhage, the household mentioned. She died Feb. 25.
Glassman mentioned the household has not dominated out taking authorized motion in opposition to Valley Presbyterian Hospital however that they’re targeted on supporting one another and holding the Los Angeles Unified Faculty District accountable for its failure to intervene lengthy earlier than the deadly assault.
The sisters had been bullied, harassed and bodily attacked for months at college, and their mom reported the incidents to high school officers, who did not cease the abuse, he mentioned.
“The main target can’t cease with one pupil — there have to be a tough take a look at what the adults in cost knew, once they knew it, and why significant motion wasn’t taken sooner,” Glassman mentioned.
A spokesperson for LAUSD mentioned the district doesn’t touch upon pending or ongoing litigation.
Final month, a 12-year-old lady died days after collapsing on the street following a fistfight close to a faculty bus cease in her Georgia neighborhood, in keeping with police.
Jada West, a sixth grader, died after a combat with one other pupil from Mason Creek Center Faculty broke out at an intersection close to her dwelling.