By Andrea Klick
Los Angeles Daily News
LOS ANGELES — More than a dozen parents and other residents called on Los Angeles Unified School District board members Wednesday, Oct. 7, to reinstate campus police at secondary schools following the death of a 17-year-old senior after he fell from his school’s fourth floor.
Xavier Nungaray-Martinez died Sept. 30 after falling from Benjamin Franklin High School in Highland Park. The Los Angeles County Medical Examiner has ruled Xavier’s death a suicide.
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Reina Orellana, a relative who represented Xavier’s family at the school board meeting, said her son dealt with bullying in LAUSD schools to the point where she had to pay him to get psychological help. Now, she said her daughter, who was at Franklin the day Xavier died, is also traumatized. She questioned why school officials didn’t intervene earlier, as family members have said Xavier dealt with bullying since his sophomore year, which made him want to leave the school.
“I would like to know,” Orellana told the board in Spanish, “Where were you when the boy was having problems? Where were you when the boy asked for help? Where were you when the boy was being attacked?”
During public comment, at least a dozen other parents criticized school board members for cutting school police funding by 35% following the 2020 police killing of George Floyd and nationwide protests for racial justice. The school board also decided then to no longer have officers stationed at secondary school campuses, a decision organizers like Maria Luisa Palma believe has led to an increase in violence at schools.
Before Xavier’s death, online video shows an adult standing between two students with his arms out. One student punches the other, and the adult can be heard saying “Stop! Stop! Calm down.” The student who was punched runs out to the hallway and is followed by the other boy before the first student goes head first over the railing.
A classmate said he heard staff yelling for Xavier and trying to get to him before he went over the railing.
Xavier, who was also identified by family as Xavier Amaya and Xavier Amaya Nungaray, had dealt with bullying at the school since his sophomore year, his family said at a vigil last week.
Stephanie Amaya, Xavier’s aunt, said the school and district didn’t do enough to prevent bullying. She started a petition calling for greater security at Los Angeles Unified schools, including more security cameras, better training for security officers, police presence at schools, railing safety systems and greater communication with campus staff.
Los Angeles police officials said in a statement Wednesday that they are continuing to investigate the student’s death and await a final autopsy report from the medical examiner.
Investigators haven’t yet established a connection between bullying and Xavier’s death but said they’re taking allegations of bullying that he faced seriously. Detectives are continuing to look into events leading up to the student’s death and ask the public to reach out with information that could help the investigation.
“The Department recognizes the concerns expressed by the student’s family, classmates and the broader community and remain committed to conducting a thorough, objective and impartial investigation,” police said.
Luisa Palma, an activist with Oleada, a group that works to educate Los Angeles Unified parents and encourages them to speak out about school-related issues, said the group believes bringing back campus police to all middle and high schools in the district will cut down on issues related to drugs, gangs and crime in schools.
“It’s just one more tool in the district’s toolbox to keep discipline and have some amount of consequences when it does get to this level,” Luisa Palma said.
Raul Claros, who founded the nonprofit California Rising, said he worries that, once his child graduates from fifth grade to middle school, they’ll no longer be in a safe environment. He encouraged board members to work with parents and community groups to find solutions to keep students safe. When he was a student, Claros said teachers had a phone in their classrooms that could call a campus officer.
“That prevented a lot of us as students from even trying to cross that line,” Claros said.
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