An L.A. teen died. Her mom blames bullying, high school’s inaction

On Dec. 13, after a long day of cleaning motel rooms as a housekeeper, Maria Juarez found her 16-year-old daughter at their South Los Angeles home trembling and sweating. Months later, Shaylee was targeted again at Manual Arts, her mother said, a fight that she believes led to her daughter’s untimely death. The Los Angeles County medical examiner this weekend ruled Shaylee’s death accidental, finding the cause of death was “sequelae of blunt head trauma,” or the result of a prior head injury. An LAPD spokesperson said the agency responded twice to calls related to Shaylee’s death, first on March 9 for a victim who fell, and then the next day for a “lost juvenile found at a local hospital.” The spokesperson did not respond to follow-up questions from The Times about the circumstances around those calls. The following day, the principal sent another note to families about an incident in which “school staff intervened to break up a physical altercation between students,” noting that an investigation was ongoing and that additional Los Angeles School Police officers would be providing extra patrols on campus “in an abundance of caution.” It wasn’t immediately clear if this incident was related to Shaylee’s death.