It seemed like a normal day at Reseda Charter High School. For Kimberly Zavaleta Chuquipa, that means trouble.
Her family said the 12-year-old girl saw her older sister, Sharon, being bullied by a group of students on campus on February 17. This isn’t the first time. She and her sister had suffered this before.
Kimberly intervened. In the ensuing melee, she was hit in the head with a metal water bottle and was seriously injured. She was taken to hospital, where she later died.
Her death has left her family devastated and demanding answers.
“She dreamed of becoming a doctor and she always told me she would take care of me,” said her mother, Elma Chuquipa Sanchez, wiping away tears.
The family filed a wrongful death claim against the Los Angeles Unified School District on Wednesday, alleging school officials failed to investigate reports of bullying, adequately supervise student interactions or implement effective safety measures.
A spokesman for the Los Angeles Unified School District said the district does not comment on pending or ongoing litigation.
“When violence escalates, student safety breaks down, and that’s exactly what happened in the Los Angeles Unified School District,” said Robert Glassman. “This tragedy really highlights and underscores the very real and devastating consequences of unchecked bullying,” the attorney, a partner at one of three law firms representing the family, said at a news conference Wednesday morning.
Read more: A 12-year-old Reseda student was killed after being hit with a water bottle and is currently being investigated as a homicide.
Kimberly’s family said in a prelude to the lawsuit that the Feb. 17 incident was not the first time their daughter had been “bullied and harassed on campus.” Their mother allegedly “reported the bullying to LAUSD administrators multiple times. LAUSD did nothing.”
Glassman of Panish Shea Ravipudi LLP said that in the weeks leading up to Feb. 17, the same group of students bullied other children at the school and assaulted another female student.
He said the attack on the girl was captured on video and posted on social media with the caption “Happy Tuesday”.
A video documenting the incident with Kimberly and her sister has also been circulating on social media.
Glassman and family said Kimberly was taken to Valley Presbyterian Hospital in Van Nuys after the Feb. 17 incident. She was evaluated and sent home.
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Three days later, however, she underwent emergency brain surgery at UCLA Mattel Children’s Hospital. She fell into a drug-induced coma and died on February 25.
Glassman said the family’s legal team is investigating whether Kimberly received appropriate tests during her initial hospitalization. But he said the tragedy still highlighted bullying problems in the Los Angeles Unified School District, the nation’s second-largest school system.
“Frankly, there are countless reports of bullying in the district,” Glassman said. “According to a recent study, one in three middle school students like Kimberly have experienced bullying in LAUSD schools.”
Los Angeles Unified School District officials declined to comment or confirm the ratio. But an internal audit in 2017 found that one in five high school students and one in four elementary school students said they had been bullied during the previous school year.
“This is inexcusable,” Glassman said. “This is something school districts need to start taking seriously.”
In December, researchers at UCLA and UC Riverside surveyed 606 public high school principals to determine the impact of the Trump administration’s mass deportations on students.
Some 36% of principals surveyed from May to August said students from immigrant families were bullied, and 64% said attendance had dropped.
Read more: A Los Angeles teen has died. Her mom blames bullying, high school inaction
At Wednesday’s news conference, Glassman played a video showing the moment Kimberly and her 15-year-old sister were allegedly attacked by bullies. He did not elaborate further on the context, but said the photo was taken before Kimberly was struck by a metal water bottle.
The 49-second video begins with a young girl wearing blue pants picking up a metal water bottle from the ground and throwing it at another girl. Soon after, a tall boy wearing a toque appears to choke her, while a student in the background yells: “Fight, fight, fight.”
The girl managed to break free but was then attacked by the same girl she threw the water bottle at. Another smaller girl wearing pink pants can be seen following closely behind the blue girl.
In an interview on the YouTube podcast Tier Talk, the girls’ uncle, Guy Gazit, identified the girl in blue as Sharon and the girl in pink pants as Kimberly. Unlike Glassman, Gazit said the video was taken after Kimberly was hit with a water bottle, and Sharon responded by throwing the bottle at another student.
“As you can see, she clings to her sister and walks behind her because before that she came [to the] Front, she was hit in the head,” Gazit said.
“She persisted because she was injured at this point, right?” the interviewer asked.
“She’s already hurt; she’s already complaining of being dizzy,” Gazit replied.
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Gazit claimed in the interview that school police were on campus at the time of the fight and that other students involved were not disciplined.
During Wednesday’s news conference, Kimberly’s parents stood together and cried as they remembered their daughter as an outgoing little girl who loved to sing, dance and learn to cook.
Between them are two large photos of Kimberly. In one of the photos, she and her sister embraced their mother, who was kneeling next to Hollywood star actor Christopher Reeve.
In another photo, 9-year-old Khimberly holds up drawings and photos from a school project.
“I helped her,” her father said, smiling. “She did very well in this class.”
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Kimberly’s death has brought additional scrutiny to the Los Angeles Unified School District at a time when it was already mired in other controversies.
Last week, a Carson High School staff member was placed Left after allegedly sparking a series of fights on campus.
Two weeks ago, Sgt. Alberto Carvalho placed on paid administrative leave pending investigation FBI raids his home and district offices.
This is also not the first time a student has died as a result of bullying allegations in the Los Angeles Unified School District.
In March 2024, 16-year-old Shaylee Mejia died of a cerebral hemorrhage. The family claims it was related to a bullying-related fight at school.
But the final autopsy report determined there was no link between the fight – in which Mejia appeared to bang her head against the wall – and her death. Instead, the report cited injuries she suffered from a fall down the stairs days after the fight.
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This story originally appeared in the Los Angeles Times.
