White Powder Sickens 14 Pacoima Students

Fourteen fourth-graders at Haddon Avenue Elementary School were rushed to emergency rooms Wednesday morning suffering serious symptoms after they swallowed a white powder believed to be cocaine or methamphetamine that one of the children apparently found and shared with classmates, authorities said.

The students reacted with hallucinations and violent outbursts, kicking and screaming, authorities and other students said.

One student suffered a seizure, said school district spokesman Shel Erlich, adding: “We’re uncertain whether it’s related [to taking the drug], but we’re assuming it is.” The child’s condition was not known, Erlich said.

The students were treated for nausea, dizziness and hallucinations at Providence Holy Cross Medical Center in Mission Hills and Pacifica Hospital of the Valley in Sun Valley, hospital administrators said.

Three were held into the night at Holy Cross, but most were released from hospitals late in the day--with no reports of serious physical injury--after the uproar disrupted classrooms, shocked administrators and triggered a panic among parents.

“One of the children found some type of rock or powder [in a small box] and a vial of liquid and passed it to others,” said Lt. Rick Papke of the Los Angeles Police Department’s Foothill Division. The girl found the drugs “in front of her house,” Papke said.

“Some swallowed it, some licked it.”

The hospitals were performing blood tests and police were interviewing the students and testing the liquid found in the vial.

“It could be cocaine, or methamphetamines,” Papke said. “We don’t know.”

The students knew they were taking drugs, said school district spokeswoman Socorro Serrano. “Some of them did think it was cocaine,” she said. “Curiosity drove them to try it.”

The girl who allegedly distributed the drugs to her fellow fourth-graders was the first to become sick. She appeared in the nurse’s office around 8:45 a.m., shortly after school began, school administrators said. A number of other sick students arrived in the nurse’s office within 90 minutes. School authorities summoned paramedics.

One student who said she refused the substance--”It smelled nasty”--recalled how the girl who brought the white powder to school could not tie her shoes in class and needed help writing her name on the board.

“She was hyper,” the student recalled. “The teaching assistant was pulling her back to her seat. She was trying to run.”

A mother who was called to pick up her son at school because he was misbehaving said she found him sitting on the floor of the main office, kicking, pulling his hair and biting his arm.

“He didn’t recognize me, but then he finally grabbed me and started screaming at me and kicking me,” the woman said.

School officials had not decided whether to discipline any of the students, a school district spokesman said. The girl who brought the drugs to school “is feeling terrible,” said Serrano. “She’s really sorry, really remorseful.”

Crisis counselors spent Wednesday speaking with students in individual sessions.

Haddon administrators said they did not think any other students had tried the substances. But as a precaution, the administrators said, they had urged parents to monitor their children for symptoms, including nausea and dizziness.

Several parents said the school did not provide enough information on Wednesday. A group of parents gathered outside the school gates, shouting at administrators.

“What’s going on?” Frank Massei shouted above the crowd. “We need to know.”

“Give us our children,” shouted another.

The school was planning to hold morning and afternoon meetings for parents today to discuss the incident and answer questions.