A family is accusing the Los Angeles Unified School District of allowing their children to be taken from an Encino school by their biological mother and missing with them for nine hours.
The siblings, ages 8 and 10, were participating in extracurricular activities at Lanai Road Elementary School. They were usually picked up by their adoptive mother, Lucia Jasso, around 5 p.m., according to her attorney, Christa Ramey.
But on May 14, the children’s biological mother, Isabel Rios, entered the school office around 3:30 p.m. and asked to pick them up without providing any identity, according to a claim filed by their family with the school district. prove. Such claims are usually made before a lawsuit is filed.
Lamy said Rios was not designated as the person responsible for picking up the children. Rios allegedly lost custody of his siblings around 2015 due to drug addiction. A few years later, Rios’ mother, Jaso, adopted the two children.
The children were called to the office that day and saw Rios waiting at the school gate. She allegedly called them over to let them know she was going to pick them up, and the children “reluctantly agreed.”
There was no security or staff at the gate where students were picked up, the statement said.
“This behavior is not only an act of negligence on the part of the Los Angeles Unified School District; [the after-school program‘s] employees, staff, servants, contractors and agents, but it was also a breach of their mandatory duty to protect children from abduction as unauthorized third parties picked up children from the school grounds.
The Los Angeles Unified School District declined to comment on its system for transporting students to after-school programs.
“LA Unified takes the safety of all students very seriously,” said Shannon Haber, spokesperson for the Los Angeles Unified School District. “The district is investigating these claims. However, LA Unified does not comment on pending or ongoing litigation.” .
The siblings were missing for nine hours that day, during which time Rios reportedly took them on six buses and two trains to Compton, where her boyfriend’s mother lived. Lamy said officers eventually located them with the help of closed-circuit cameras on public transportation.
“[The children] They are traumatized, scared, tired and sore from having to walk and run,” the statement said.
Lamy said the children knew Rios as a relative but did not know she was their biological mother at the time of the incident, adding to their trauma.
“That conversation has to be forced on them,” the lawyer said. “There’s a lot of adult information for them to learn at a very young age.”
Rios then sent Jaso messages threatening to take the children away again, Lamy said.
Children ‘worried about going back to school’ [and] Are they safe,” she said. “They feel like it’s all been taken away from them.”
The claim was filed last week, and Lammy said the lawsuit could proceed in October.
“Schools should educate our children, but they should also keep them safe,” she said.
