Salvadoran Youth Who Shot Himself in Classroom Dies

A high school student who fired a bullet into his head in front of his classmates last week died Sunday in the Intensive Care Unit at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, a few hours after his mother and other family members arrived from El Salvador.

Hospital spokesman Ron Wise said Oscar Marquez, 18, never regained consciousness after shooting himself during class at Los Angeles High School Wednesday, and had been “brain dead” since he arrived.

Wise said Marquez was pronounced dead at 10:30 a.m., but his vital functions were artificially maintained by life-support systems until 9 p.m., to allow organs to be removed for transplantation.

Wise said the family had agreed that the youth’s organs should be donated to other patients.

Permission for Visit

The U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service had granted permission for the boy’s mother, Eulinda Marquez, 53, and four brothers and sisters, ages 9, 11, 14 and 16, to enter the United States to visit the comatose boy.

Marquez, who arrived in the United States from El Salvador two years ago, shot himself a few minutes before the end of an English-as-a-second-language class.

Witnesses told police he was sitting near the back of the classroom when took a .22-caliber pistol from his pocket and fired. Classmates said he had shown the weapon to several people before class and told them he meant to kill himself, but they did not believe the pistol was real.