It was around 12:30 p.m. when Elena Perez got an alarming call from her 15-year-old-daughter’s California high school.
Staff at Helen Bernstein High School in Los Angeles informed Perez that her daughter, Melanie Ramos, was missing from class, according to a lawsuit filed against the Los Angeles Unified School District.
Staff couldn’t explain her absence, the lawsuit states, and Perez pleaded with them to look for Melanie.
Her pleas went unanswered, the lawsuit said, and eight hours later, at around 8:30 p.m. on Sept. 13, Melanie was found dead in a campus bathroom. She had overdosed on fentanyl.
A negligence death and wrongful death lawsuit filed on Tuesday, Dec. 12 — on behalf of Perez against the school district — argues staff was aware that drugs were prevalent on campus yet took no action. Additionally, the suit accuses the district of negligence for failing to look for the teen after the school notified Perez of her absence.
“The school district is responsible. They should take care of our kids,” Perez said in Spanish at a Wednesday, Dec. 14 news conference, NBC Los Angeles reported.
In an email to McClatchy News a Los Angeles Unified spokesperson said the district “does not comment on pending or ongoing litigation.”
“However, the safety and well-being of our students and employees remains our top priority,” the statement said.
On the day of Melanie’s overdose, she and another teen girl purchased what they believed to be Percocet at a nearby park, police said, McClatchy News previously reported.
Two days later, two teenage boys were arrested in connection with Melanie’s death, The Associated Press reported. Police believe one of the teen boys sold two teen girls pills said to be Percocet at about 12:30 p.m. on the day of Melanie’s death.
The teens later crushed the pills and snorted the drugs in a restroom at their school, police said, according to AP.
In the evening, a man searching for his missing stepdaughter at the high school found her suffering from a drug overdose in a hallway before finding Melanie dead in the bathroom, McClatchy News reported.
“If it wasn’t for the other party’s parent, then my niece wouldn’t have been found until maybe the next day,” Gladys Manriques, Melanie’s aunt, said at Wednesday’s news conference, CBS Los Angeles reported. “That’s why we want justice. We don’t want another parent to suffer what we’re suffering.”
School staff were negligent in their lack of student supervision, the lawsuit said.
“If the Bernstein school staff would have found Ramos before 8:30 p.m., there would have been time for medical treatment for Ramos, and she would still be alive today,” the lawsuit said.
Prior to Melanie’s overdose, there were “at least six students enrolled” at the high school who had drug overdoses in 2022, according to the lawsuit.
Michael Carrillo, the attorney representing Perez, referred to the school as a “haven for drugs” during the Dec. 14 news conference, City News Service reported.
“Kids would be buying and selling and using drugs in the bathroom at Bernstein, and administrators on campus did nothing about it,” he said, the outlet reported. “They knew, because there were six prior calls to Bernstein High School for potential drug overdoses in 2022 alone. Six prior. How do you not make any changes to protect kids?”
Melanie’s aunt echoed Carillo’s sentiment, ACB 7 News reported.
“When we send our kids to school, we send them thinking they’re safe … but that’s not happening. And this is a problem at Bernstein High School,” Manriquez said at a news conference, the outlet reported.
Tags: Children Exposed Counterfeit Oxy Fentanyl Opioid Crisis Overdoses School Incident Teen Overdose
