Many Want Student Involved in Fatal Altercation Expelled

As police continued to investigate last week’s deadly altercation at Juniper Intermediate School, community members called Monday for the immediate expulsion of the 14-year-old student involved in the fight.

Thirteen-year-old Stephan Corson died Friday after a fistfight with another eighth-grader as school let out for the weekend. Although the cause of the fight remained under investigation, Palmdale School District Supt. Nancy Smith said the fight wasn’t racially motivated and none of the witnesses heard any racial slurs.

Stephan is black, the other student white.

“There’s no reason to believe that race was a factor,” Smith said Monday.

But John McDonald, a professor of African American history and literature at Antelope Valley College and a member of the Los Angeles County Human Relations Committee’s Hate Crime Task Force, cautioned it’s too soon to draw any conclusions about motive.

“It may or may not be racial,” said McDonald, a member of the Antelope Citizens Committed to Equality in Society and Scholarship. “But with the Antelope Valley having had problems with racial differences, we cannot rule it out.”

Smith said the 14-year-old has been suspended until Nov. 30. At that time, she said, school officials will follow district policy and decide whether to extend the suspension and schedule a hearing.

“This child is being treated like any other child,” Smith said.

Investigators with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department interviewed the boy at length before releasing him to his father Friday night.

Conflicting reports have emerged about whether Stephan died of a blow to the head or because he hit his head on the sidewalk when he fell. The Los Angeles County coroner’s office said a cause of death will not be determined for several weeks.

“We don’t know all the details,” said Deputy Joan Raber, a spokeswoman for the Sheriff’s Department.

Stephan’s 26-year-old brother said the family wants answers.

“My main concern is that they keep saying it was a mutual fight, but there was a death,” said the brother, who asked not to be identified. “Right now, I don’t care about the racial part, I just want to know how he died. It’s unclear.”

The brother described Stephan as a boy who would break up fights among his friends.

“I never knew him to fight,” he said. “Never.”

Stephan grew up in the San Fernando Valley, loved rap music, swimming, baseball, football and basketball, his brother said. The family moved to Palmdale with the hope of buying an affordable home where Stephan could have a dog.

“We just wanted him to have a nice atmosphere,” the brother said. “He already had friends at his new school. We don’t know how this could have happened.”

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Palmdale Mayor Jim Ledford said that although there may be sharp racial divisions in the Antelope Valley, the school system is one of the more integrated areas.

“The diversity is pretty strong in the schools,” Ledford said. “You see segregation among kids out of school. But in the schools, especially the middle schools, there’s no real segregation.”

Stephan and his mother moved to Palmdale from Winnetka less than a month ago. Before the move, he attended Hale Middle School in Woodland Hills, where counselors met Monday with about 30 grieving students.

“Some of them had just found out that he died,” said Barbara Burson-Turner, a counselor. “Some of them remembered him from elementary school.”

Funeral services for Stephan will be held at 7 p.m. today at First Baptist Church, 20553 Sherman Way, Canoga Park.