4th-Grader Passes Drug Around; 14 Become Ill

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

The drugs caused some students to hallucinate and sent others into violent outbursts, kicking and screaming, authorities and other students said. One student suffered a seizure, said school district spokesman Shel Erlich. The child’s condition was not known.

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

Three were kept overnight, but most were released from the hospitals late in the day--with no reports of serious physical injuries--but not before the uproar disrupted classrooms, confused 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. “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 about 8:45 a.m., shortly after school began, administrators said. The rest of the sick students arrived in the nurse’s office within 90 minutes. School authorities summoned paramedics shortly after.

One student who said she refused the drugs 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.”

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.”

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