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A troubling case has emerged from a Los Angeles school, where a 12-year-old student was taken into custody following the tragic death of a classmate. The incident, reportedly linked to bullying, involved the victim being struck on the head with a metal water bottle, authorities disclosed on Friday.
The arrested juvenile, whose identity remains undisclosed, faces charges of murder, according to Los Angeles Police Officer Charles Miller. This development follows the untimely death of 12-year-old Khimberly Zavaleta Chuquipa on February 25, who succumbed to injuries sustained during the February 17 altercation at Reseda Charter High School, which serves both high school and middle school students.
While the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office has yet to make an official statement, the arrest marks a critical moment in the case. Due to the ages of those involved, further details have been withheld, Officer Miller noted.
Khimberly’s family, grappling with their loss, claims the incident was a result of ongoing bullying, an issue that has sparked broader concerns about student safety and school management. Their attorney, Robert Glassman, emphasized in an email on Friday the importance of the arrest as a step toward accountability. However, he cautioned that this alone does not equate to justice, nor does it address the systemic failures that allowed such a tragedy to occur.
“This arrest is an important step toward accountability, but an arrest alone does not equal justice and does not answer the larger question of how this was allowed to happen in the first place,” Robert Glassman, the family’s attorney, said in email Friday.
Khimberly was in a hallway on the school’s campus when she was struck in the head with a metal water bottle while trying to help her older sister, Sharon Zavaleta, who was being bullied by a group of students, the family said in the wrongful-death claim filed last month against the Los Angeles Unified School District.
She was taken to Valley Presbyterian Hospital, where she was evaluated and released the same day. Three days later, she was taken to UCLA Mattel Children’s Hospital, where she was placed in an induced coma and underwent emergency brain surgery to try to stop a hemorrhage, the family said. She died Feb. 25.
Glassman said the family has not ruled out taking legal action against Valley Presbyterian Hospital but that they are focused on supporting each other and holding the Los Angeles Unified School District accountable for its failure to intervene long before the fatal attack.
The sisters had been bullied, harassed and physically attacked for months at school, and their mother reported the incidents to school officials, who failed to stop the abuse, he said.
“The focus cannot stop with one student — there must be a hard look at what the adults in charge knew, when they knew it, and why meaningful action wasn’t taken sooner,” Glassman said.
A spokesperson for LAUSD said the district does not comment on pending or ongoing litigation.
Last month, a 12-year-old girl died days after collapsing in the street following a fistfight near a school bus stop in her Georgia neighborhood, according to police.
Jada West, a sixth grader, died after a fight with another student from Mason Creek Middle School broke out at an intersection near hear home.