Death of Shaylee Mejia

Shaylee Mejia
Shaylee Mejia on March 9, 2024, the day she was hospitalized.
Born	2007
Died	March 15, 2024 Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Cause of death	Blunt force trauma
Education	Manual Arts High School
Parent	Maria Juarez (mother)

Shaylee Mejia was a 16-year-old student at Manual Arts High School in South Los Angeles, California and victim of bullying who died on March 15, 2024, due to blunt force trauma to the head. Although ruled an accident, her death has been widely attributed to injuries she had suffered from a fight at school on March 5, 2024.

Background

Shaylee Mejia was raised by her mother Maria Juarez, who works as a hotel housekeeper, with her younger brother. Juarez grew up as an orphan in Guatemala and immigrated to the United States alone. She was 16 years old when she gave birth to Mejia and became a single mother to protect her children from abuse by her former partner. According to Juarez, Mejia was a very obedient, thoughtful and caring girl who often helped care for her brother and dreamed of becoming a nurse.

Shaylee spent most of her education at the UCLA Community School, where Juarez stated she never had any issues. For safety reasons, Juarez transferred her to Manual Arts High School for the 2023–24 school year as it was closer to home and moved the family into a new apartment. Shaylee attended Manual Arts for eight months and had experienced bullying during that time for being a new student. After several months at the school, Mejia often came home with bruises on her body, presumably from fights. Juarez first learned about the bullying when Mejia came home on December 13, 2019, with bruises covering her arms and chest from a fight. Juarez reportedly took pictures of her daughter's injuries and went to the school the next day, where she complained to administrators. They dismissed her concerns, even after she and her daughter tried to show a video of the altercation, and after insisting, she filed a report to the campus police. However, no action was taken about the situation. Mejia continued to be targeted by bullies, with her friends capturing videos of several of the fights on their cell phones.

Incident

On March 5, 2024, Mejia was involved in a violent altercation in the school bathroom with another teenage girl. Videos of the attack show Mejia hitting her head against a stall and falling. Mejia did not tell her mother as she did not want her to worry and lose hours of work, although she complained of a headache for several days after the fight but continued to go to school. On March 9, she fainted while attending a birthday party that night and was rushed to the hospital by a friend. When Juarez arrived at the hospital, she was informed by a doctor that Mejia had suffered a brain hemorrhage. Mejia never regained consciousness and was pronounced dead on March 15. Juarez was unaware of the incident until she was notified of it after Mejia's death.

Investigation

Initial reports claimed that Mejia had fallen down a flight of stairs at the party. On March 26, 2024, the Los Angeles County medical examiner ruled Mejia's death accidental, finding the cause of death to be "sequelae of blunt head trauma". The final autopsy report determined that her death was not linked to the fight, but instead cited her head injuries were sustained from falling down some stairs. It claims that Mejia and a friend were running down the stairs from the second floor, and that partway through Mejia "tripped and fell down the remainder of the stairs". However, Juarez and her attorney Luis Carrillo dispute the reports, noting that the party was held in a one-story building, and provided videos of the physical altercations that happened on December 13 and March 5. They hold the school district responsible for negligence and failing to protect Mejia from the bullying, and question how Mejia's death could be considered accidental.