Two teenagers have been arrested in connection with the fatal fentanyl overdose of a 15-year-old Los Angeles high school student who died on campus Tuesday night after buying drugs with a friend in a nearby Hollywood park.
Los Angeles police detectives were searching the home of a suspect Thursday who was described as a teenager. Both male suspects were described by authorities as being ages 15 and 16. Their names have not been released because they are underage, LAPD Chief Michel Moore said.
They are students at Apex High School, an independent charter school located next to Helen Bernstein High School, the school where the girls attended, he said. One suspect was found with pills when he was arrested at his grandmother’s home Thursday morning, said Moore.
“There is a drug organization behind this,” he said during a Thursday news conference in downtown Los Angeles. “The trail of this does not end here.”
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The girl who died, identified by Fox Los Angeles as Melanie Ramos, was found dead in a bathroom inside Bernstein. Moore said the girls crushed the pills and snorted them.
The parents of the two teens became worried when they didn’t come home Tuesday night and went out to search for them after reporting them missing. The stepfather of one girl found her collapsed in a courtyard on the school campus.
She told him her friend was in a bathroom and that they bought Percocet pills in nearby Lexington Park. Investigators believe the pills were laced with fentanyl. Ramos was found in the bathroom and pronounced dead at the scene by paramedics.
Her friend remains hospitalized, Moore said.
That same night, LAPD officers discovered two other victims of drug overdoses that could be connected to the same drug dealer. One was a 17-year-old male Hollywood High School student who was taken to a hospital. Another teen victim was found in the same area.
Paramedics administered Narcan to the fourth victim.
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti addressed the proliferation of fentanyl being used by young kids.
“These are not overdoses,” he said. “There are people who have been poisoned. There are murders.”
Los Angeles Unified School District Superintendent Alberto Carvalho said at least six students have overdosed on drugs in recent weeks.
“Using children to harm children is the greatest crime, the greatest sin one can commit in our community,” he said Thursday.
