Accident Is Ruled Out in Palmdale Boy’s Death

The boy who died in a fight at a Palmdale middle school 11 weeks ago was killed as a result of a punch thrown by another student, officials with the Los Angeles County coroner’s office said Friday.

An autopsy ruled out any health conditions or accidental factors, such as 13-year-old Stephan Corson slipping on his own, as the cause of death, said Scott Carrier, a spokesman for the coroner’s office.

“This was not an accident but a homicide that happened during an assault,” Carrier said.

Juvenile prosecutors will now examine whether Stephan’s death was a lawful or unlawful homicide, said Victoria Pipkin, a spokeswoman with the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office. A homicide committed in self-defense can be a lawful homicide that would not precipitate criminal charges.

Sheriff’s investigators say they believe Stephan Corson started the fight with the other student after class. The other student, a 14-year-old boy, fought back, punching Stephan in the face and knocking him to the ground, where Stephan hit his chin on the sidewalk, investigators said.

The 14-year-old’s father, who spoke with a reporter Thursday night for the first time since the fight, insisted his son had tried to avoid the confrontation.

The boy--shy and small for his age--is scared of fighting, the father said, and was terrified to step outside the classroom at Juniper Intermediate School, where Stephan was waiting.

“But when he got outside and this other kid started pounding him, he hit back,” said the father, whose name is being withheld to protect the privacy of his son. “The thing I can’t get over is that my son got the crap beaten out of him that day. You should have seen all the bruises and the black eye. Nobody can understand how Stephan died.”

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According to the coroner’s report, Stephan died of acute spinal cord injury from blunt force trauma. Lab tests, which were one factor that delayed release of final autopsy results until Friday, showed microscopic hemorrhaging at the top of Stephan’s spinal cord.

The hemorrhaging was caused either directly by the punch or by Stephan slamming his chin into the sidewalk after he was hit and snapping his head back, Carrier said.

“Doctors were unable to determine if the blow caused his death or if it was the fall,” Carrier said. “But we do know that he wouldn’t have fallen unless he was hit.”

The incident has troubled many in Palmdale--not only because a student was killed in school, but because the teen’s family has raised concerns over racism playing a role in the handling of the case. Stephan was black and the other student is white.

Mary Corson, Stephan’s mother, filed a $10-million wrongful death claim Thursday against the Palmdale School District, saying the district was negligent in allowing the fight to take place. She sounded distraught Friday when she learned of the finding of homicide.

“I just can’t hear it right now, I just can’t,” she said. “I’m all by myself and I can’t deal with this right now.”

Corson and others have criticized the Palmdale School District and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department for what they perceive to be lenient treatment of the other student because he is white.

“Maybe now Stephan will get the justice he deserves,” said black activist Najee Ali, who has taken Greyhound buses from South-Central to Palmdale to hold rallies in Stephan’s name. “We’ve been saying all along that the ground didn’t kill him--another boy did.”

The fight began in a seventh period science class, the last class of the day on a Friday, when the 14-year-old was reprimanded by a substitute teacher for throwing spitballs, according to Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Det. Barry Wish.

When the 14-year-old went to clean up his mess, Stephan tossed some scraps of paper on the floor and told the boy to pick that up too, Wish said.

The older boy refused, the pair began arguing and Stephan vowed to settle the dispute after class, Wish said. When class was dismissed, Stephan attacked the other youth in front of a crowd of 25 students, Wish said.

As a teacher was struggling to pry the two apart, the other boy felled Stephan with a blow to the chin. Stephan collapsed to the ground and died at a nearby hospital 40 minutes later.

The older youth was immediately removed from school, pending expulsion. Last month the Palmdale school board decided to expel him, though the expulsion was then suspended, paving the way for the youth to return to an alternative school in the district.

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Since the fight, the teen, who has been staying with his mother in Ventura County, has been haunted by nightmares of accidentally killing his friends, his father said.

According to the father, the boy dreams he is fighting, pitted against his buddies, and when he punches them in the face, their heads explode and they die in front of him.

A few weeks ago, while the father and his son were folding laundry, the teen started crying. Apparently, the father said, his son had come across the pants he was wearing the day of the fight. The father said he immediately threw them out.

“This kid has no idea what is going to happen to him and he’s terrified,” the father said. “He can’t go a day without completely breaking down.”