Report: 11-year-old’s death not linked to school incident

PIERCE COUNTY, Wash. — The Pierce County Medical Examiner has ruled that the death of an 11-year-old girl was not related to a school incident.

That information was shared by the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department at a Franklin Pierce school board meeting on Tuesday night.

“It’s not the result of blunt force trauma or things like that you would expect, a concussion with brain swelling, bruising that would cause someone to die in their sleep. That is not what has occurred. That is what the report is saying,” said Sgt. Darren Moss with the sheriff’s department.

Lenyia Swansey Fa’afiti was found unresponsive in her bed last week after an incident she was involved at Ford Middle School.

An ambulance took the Lenyia to the hospital, where she died a few days later.

When deputies investigated, they said the girl’s parents reported that she had been assaulted while attending school earlier last week.

Franklin Pierce school officials confirmed she was a student in the district after receiving a video of an incident on campus. That video, which school officials described as an assault or an altercation, was passed on to investigators.

Deputies told KIRO 7 that they did not receive a report about the alleged assault until they were notified by the school district.

Moreover, district employees said they didn’t know about the case until after the girl was hospitalized.

The exact cause of Lenyia’s death has not been released.

Students at Franklin Pierce High School in Tacoma walked out of class in protest Wednesday morning, calling for more to be done in addressing bullying and school violence.

“They’re working at the school today to just create a space for students to reflect and process,” said Joel Zylstra with the Franklin Pierce School District.