Katrina, a blonde who looked like a starlet, drove up in a black
Jeep Grand Cherokee and asked, "Who messed with my sister?"
Deanna stepped forward. Minutes later, while dozens of kids were cheering,
"Fight! You can take her!" Katrina stabbed Deanna in the
heart with a knife that was one inch wide and at least five inches
long. Deanna's friends put her in a car and rushed to Santa Monica
Hospital where at 12:15 a.m., she was pronounced dead. The following
day, police picked up Katrina but she had seizures in jail and died
from an overdose of Pamelor, an anti-depressant.
The tragedy opened a rift in the community about who was at fault:
parents who failed to set limits, kids who were over-indulged and
had easy access to drugs and alcohol, or our entire violence-addicted
culture. The questions are still being fought in the courts and reflect
a crisis that is playing out across the country, in small towns as
well as cities. Juvenile crimes are rising--notably among girls--and
people who used to worry about getting their kids into a good college
now worry about getting them through high school alive.
When I learned about the murder I, like many other parents in the
community, was struck with dread: "This could happen to us."
Parents are still trying to come to terms with the fact that these
were girls fighting, that girls and boys cheered on the fight and
in a reversal of expectation, a white girl from a privileged home
killed an unarmed daughter of immigrants. Why did no one try to stop
the fight? When Deanna lay bleeding, why did no one call a parent
for help or dial 911? As one mother said, "This was our September
11. The shock that our kids are not safe."
* * *
The Maran family is having brunch at their house in Ocean Park, six
blocks from the beach. Harriet Maran, the mother, is tiny and lithe,
wearing shorts, a bright blue shirt and matching knee socks. Her husband,
Ilja, an engineer, is fit and gregarious, quick to laugh and use expansive
hand gestures.
They've built a shrine to Deanna in front, with pictures, candles
and masses of lilies and roses. Inside, the house seems to be spilling
over with talk, music, visitors, food, the sounds of home repair and
boxes and bags of garage sale clutter that Harriet collects. Ilja
has been rebuilding the house himself for 25 years. "When the
place looks perfect," Ilja says, "that means we are moving
out."
Over the years, they also bought rental units and every weekend,
they would take their four daughters and young son to work on the
properties together, installing sprinklers, painting walls and fixing
broken pipes. Harriet instilled in her children the importance of
family. If a track meet or school play conflicted with family work,
family came first, no matter how loudly the girls might protest.
All four daughters excelled in school, and at home they helped with
housework but received no allowance. They were named alphabetically:
Amika, Bianca, Claudia and Deanna, but they have nicknames that sound
like pandas in the zoo: Bing Bing, Chi Chi, Boopsie and Lala.
Deanna, or Lala, was the one who made everyone laugh. She was cheerful,
rambunctious and welcoming; kids had more fun when she was around.
She once wrote, "I'm like a bullet. Once I'm fired you can't
stop me and nothing can get in my way." She loved to write poems
and rap songs, sang in the choir and played on three teams--volleyball,
water polo and track. She had dozens of best friends, most of them
boys, and although all were jocks, none could beat her in arm wrestling.
If Deanna had a fatal flaw, it was her toughness, her commitment
to stand up for what was right. "She was the defender of underdogs,
the righter of wrongs," one teacher said. When a group of older
boys at the bus stop started harassing one of her friends, Deanna
yelled at them to back off. One boy punched her in the chin and she
hit him back before a police cruiser arrived. Her mother worried about
this and told Deanna, "Don't pick someone else's fight. You can't
do that in this country. Strangers are sick--they could follow you
home and settle the score with a gun or a knife."
* * *
It's lunch time at Santa Monica High School, known as Samo. The blacks
and Latinos hang out in the main quad and the whites cluster in the
science quad. There's a subtle shift in the science quad--the way
the kids laugh and flick their heads with the insouciance of knowing
that whatever they do, there's a net.
One of the main reasons parents buy homes in Santa Monica, a small
beach city adjacent to Los Angeles, is so they can send their kids
to public school. In the L.A. Unified School District, only 13% of
the students are white. At Samo, 51% are white, 32% Latino, 11% African-American
and 6% Asian. Every year, Samo sends graduates to U.C. Berkeley, Stanford,
Harvard and Yale. Its teachers are passionate and its music program
is exemplary; the orchestra recently performed at Carnegie Hall.
"It's an urban school, but it's safe," says Joy Bramlette,
the assistant principal. Families range from affluent to poverty level,
and the dividing line is Pico Boulevard.
Deanna lived South of Pico but most of her friends lived North, including
her boyfriend, Michael Richardson. Michael has smooth black hair and
soulful eyes-the kind of guy who has a girlfriend his freshman year
and will always have a girlfriend. Michael's mother, Sylvana, a microbiologist
who's divorced, hoped the two would get married. "Deanna's the
girl you want your son to marry," she says. When Sylvana dropped
her son at the Marans' house, Deanna was often in front, washing her
mother's car. Sylvana thought, wouldn't it be great if Michael washed
my car?
Then she laughed to herself. Yeah, right.
* * *
What brought Deanna to that party on November 17? A week before,
someone she didn't know--Howie Hendler--sent an IM to his friends
saying his parents were going to Las Vegas and he was throwing a party.
Howie was in tenth grade at the Milken Community School, affiliated
with Stephen S. Wise Temple and named after Michael Milken, the former
junk bond king who donated funds to build it.
When word reached Deanna and she told her mother, Harriet asked:
who's going, whose house is it, what's the phone number? Deanna had
broken up with Michael and said she was going with two friends, Russell
Rathner and Todd Baynes. The phone kept ringing and Deanna kept grabbing
it. Harriet was cooking, Ilja and a house guest were repairing the
kitchen fan, neighbors were coming in and out. At eight, Deanna said
she heard the doorbell ring. "My ride's here! Gotta go,"
and she was out the door. She'd slipped through the net.
Jerry Rathner drove Russell, Deanna and Todd to the house of James
Yoo, who she thought was having the party. Jerry waited until a parent
answered the door, then she waved and drove away. But the party was
not at James Yoo's. After three more guys arrived, the kids got on
a bus for Westwood. Linda Livingston, a fifth grade teacher, called
her son, Tim, on his cell phone. Tim, who's tall and strong with radically
short blond hair, said he was going to a party with five guys and
Deanna. Linda heard Deanna laughing in the background and said, "Make
sure you guys protect Deanna."
She didn't ask whose party it was or if a parent would be there.
"It didn't occur to me," she said. "I knew all the
kids. The party was in Westwood. If it had been in East L.A., I'd
have been more vigilant." Other parents were more flip. One mother
said, "There are never parents at parties. If there were parents,
the kids wouldn't be there."
Meanwhile, another group of kids were gathering in Westwood Village.
Ryan Natale of Samo and Colin Zilberberg of Beverly High were heading
for the Bruin Theater but Ryan had forgotten his wallet. What else
was there to do? They called some girls who told them about the party
on Thayer. Then they ran into Sabrina Bernstein, who was coming out
of the Smoke Shop with a friend. Colin said, "Let's all go."
Sabrina, who'd gone to the Curtis School through eighth grade, was
not attending any school in November. She lived in the Brentwood hills-as
far North as you can go-with her mother and half sister, Katrina.
While Katrina was described as "gorgeous" and "like
Athena," Sabrina was said to be "really really nice."
A star basketball player. A great cook who could fix stuffed grape
leaves and pasta primavera. A vegetarian who loved animals. For her
fourteenth birthday, her mother, Angelique, planned a surprise. She
bought two live Maine lobsters with tape on their claws. She hired
a stretch limousine to pick up Sabrina and her friends from Curtis,
then took them to her club, the exclusive Beach Club, on the sand
in Santa Monica. She gave Sabrina the lobsters and removed the tape
from their claws. Sabrina waded into the waves and set them free in
the Pacific, a misguided maneuver since lobsters do not live in those
waters. A few girls cheered. One friend said later, "I'm not
a vegetarian. It was kind of boring." For party favors, Angelique
gave each girl a Kate Spade wallet.
Angelique showered her daughters with luxuries. One of Sabrina's
friends said she had three mopeds, four skateboards, a mini bike and
a motorized go-kart she would drive down Sunset Boulevard to Starbuck's
to buy a mocha. She had clothes and shoes that filled three closets.
Friends say they never saw Angelique become angry with or discipline
Sabrina. Angelique did not seem troubled when Sabrina's grades started
dropping. Sabrina told friends that she was smoking grass, but when
one mother tried to speak to Angelique about it, Angelique protested
that it wasn't true.
Last September, Sabrina entered Montclair, a small private high school
in the valley. During the second week, according to fellow students,
Sabrina was caught smoking grass and asked to leave. The head of Montclair
did not return calls to confirm this. Sabrina then started Concord
High School in Santa Monica, which is perceived by many as a place
for dysfunctional rich kids, "the last stop on the academic road."
The head of Concord, Susan Packer Davis/Hille, refutes this, citing
the school's numerous AP Scholars and Regents' Scholars. On brochures,
she describes Concord as "an academic haven for the serious student."
She asked Sabrina to leave after three weeks because she felt she
was not mature enough for the program. "Her teachers said she
was very bright and grasped concepts quickly, but she was disruptive
and giddy. She brought a bunny to school. That's something you do
when you're eight. I said, you can't have animals in school, but she
brought the bunny again."
* * *
Deanna and her group were among the first to arrive at the house
on Thayer Avenue. A handful of kids were in the back yard, including
Howie's older brother and a few of his college friends. According
to the Hendlers' attorney, Mike Magasin, the parents are "straight,
squeaky clean, conscientious people who don't drink." But in
their yard, the table was stacked with 24-packs of beer and six-packs
of Mike's Lemonade, a wine cooler which kids say gives a better buzz
than beer.
By the time Sabrina and her friends arrived at ten, the booze was
gone. Sabrina started playing a game with Colin, where they tripped
and chased each other until she crashed into a deck railing and knocked
over a pot. Deanna came up and asked her to chill, she was trashing
someone's house. Sabrina asked what she was going to do about it.
They started shoving. Deanna pushed her down in a flower bed but Sabrina
grabbed Deanna's hair and pulled her with her. Tim and Todd ran up
and separated them. Tim said later, "I thought it was kind of
odd but, whatever. It's done with."
Sabrina, crying, went to a corner of the yard and called Katrina.
Ryan warned Deanna, "You better be careful, her crazy sister's
coming." Deanna was dancing and shrugged it off. "I've got
three sisters of my own."
* * *
Katrina, in seventh grade, was admitted to Harvard-Westlake, the
most prestigious and academically demanding school in the city. Deb
Hof, who was dean at the time, said she was "a sweet, bright
girl," but by ninth grade, she was angry and doing poorly in
class. She matured early, had a voluptuous body at twelve and drew
males to her, but she argued with other girls and felt no one at school
liked her. She dated older boys, tough guys who had access to drugs.
Deb believes Katrina was "crying out, doing more and more radical
things so someone would step up and be the parent." Deb tried
to tell Angelique that Katrina needed clear rules and structure. "I
know her mother cared and loved her, but she didn't know how to help."
After several meetings, they agreed that Harvard-Westlake wasn't the
right place for Katrina and she withdrew.
Shortly after, Katrina was taken in the middle of the night to a
lockup wilderness program in Utah. She returned in the summer and
told friends she was clean. She enrolled in a small Catholic school,
Bellarmine Jefferson, but the principal, Sister Cheryl Milner, says,
"She didn't come to school much. We told her parents to get help.
She was slipping away."
Katrina suffered from a severe sleep disorder and took medications.
Angelique told her friends Katrina was "nocturnal." She
slept all day, woke up at five and went out at eleven to clubs and
parties. After turning sixteen, she stopped going to school and said
she was having "home study."
* * *
The party on Thayer Avenue was breaking up. Deanna and about 40 others
were in front, waiting for cabs or rides home. When Katrina drove
up and marched toward Deanna, Tim McGrath, who's 6'4" and husky,
recalls thinking, "`Uh oh, Deanna's gonna hurt her.' I've wrestled
with Deanna. She's strong."
Adrenaline crackled in the air and kids came running, crowding around
in a circle. Jesse Birkin from Samo said, "It's like a sporting
event. People want to root for their friend."
Katrina, with Sabrina and two other girls beside her, told Deanna,
"You should be scared, you should run." Deanna said, "I'm
not gonna run. Just listen to my side of the story!"
Fight! Punch her!
James Yoo and a friend tried to step up behind Deanna but others
pushed them back. Deanna said, "I can handle this."
Tim Livingston, who was watching intently, wasn't frightened for
Deanna. She could handle anything. At worst, she might get a black
eye. He didn't know-no one knew-that Katrina had a knife.
Bust her ass! Bitch fight!
Months later, sitting at his sunny kitchen table, Tim said, "I'd
seen fights at parties before. Usually you don't break it up. You
let it happen. I was not gonna swoop in and grab Deanna to safety.
She didn't want that, and I wouldn't do it because that's not the
way things work." He was running a butter knife nervously over
a placemat. "It's hard to explain," he said, "to an
adult who has no idea about teenage lives."
* * *
Pride. Reputation. Looking big and bad.
Teenagers have adopted the style, music and attitude of hip-hop culture,
which is the dominant youth culture world wide. Dr. Linda Taylor,
who's co-director of UCLA's Center for Mental Health in Schools, says
that ten years ago in high school, "there was a look that said,
these kids are gangsters. The low sagging pants. The hat a certain
way. Pretty soon, all the kids looked that way. They're gang wannabes,
mimicking a culture that's aggressive and confrontational."
Teenagers in West L.A. answer their cell phones, "Whassup?"
I heard young women who live behind gates in million-dollar homes
talk about who's got your back and who's your homie. They want to
have "kick-backs, where you drink, smoke and just chill."
After the fight on Thayer, Sabrina told Ryan her sister had "shanked"
Deanna.
How does this use of prison slang, this wearing of gang clothes play
with parents? It shocks, it pushes buttons. One mother said, "It
makes me want to vomit." Which is the point-has always been the
point for adolescents. Until the party on Thayer, though, all the
posing and talk were similar to the videogames they play and movies
they watch: the kills weren't real.
* * *
My assumption, when I began looking into this case, was that parents
bear much of the responsibility for the tragedy. Parents who flew
to Las Vegas and left their house in the care of a fifteen-year-old
son. Parents who dropped their kids off at that house without asking
who lived there or if an adult was present. Parents who gave their
teenagers S.U.V.'s, no significant chores, a generous allowance and
flexible curfew.
This group of parents who now have teens--and I'm one of them--has
not excelled at setting limits. All the parenting books and therapists
say we need to establish "firm, consistent rules." They
talk about being "vigilant" and "staying involved."
Linda Taylor at UCLA says kids are no longer intimidated by their
parents. "Our whole culture is afraid of the teens we've created."
Rae Simpson, a professor who's head of parenting education and research
at M.I.T., says that studies give us reason to be afraid. Kids in
private and public schools, by the time they turn fourteen, have access
to pot, mushrooms, ecstasy, crack, cocaine, crystal meth, acid and
heroin. A third of high school seniors are binge drinking. Government
surveys show that in twelfth grade, 35% of students--including a rising
number of girls--have been in a physical fight during the previous
year. Judges in Santa Monica juvenile court were hearing 19 cases
a day in 1998. Today they're hearing 60. In the face of these statistics,
"being vigilant" seems a flimsy raft to cling to.
* * *
I'm interviewing a fifteen-year-old boy on the phone when his father
calls him for dinner. The boy screams, "You already called three
times! Quit annoying me!" The father retreats.
Why do parents allow their children to speak this way? Ilja Maran,
who does not permit it, says American kids are "the most disrespectful
in the world." I hear parents tell their kids, again and again,
"That's not okay," but I rarely hear them say "that's
right" or "that's wrong." Even the professionals remove
judgment from any discussion of teens' behavior by speaking of it
in terms of "decisions." They say a girl made a "poor
decision," instead of, she stabbed someone.
This group of parents did not intend to let their kids run rampant;
they set out to create a better relationship with their children than
they'd had with their parents. They wanted to be reasonable, supportive
and understanding, to encourage their kids to develop high self esteem
and acquire every tool for success. The helped them do their homework,
in some cases wrote their papers, drove to soccer, went to parent
meetings and read books. If they did not set firm, consistent rules,
it may have been because they were not sure: what's too lenient and
what's too strict? They agonized over where the line was, and wanted
their kids to like them.
The result, according to Pam Davis, a juvenile judge in Santa Monica,
is young people who don't feel they have to follow rules because "they
learned that their parents' rules were malleable." She adds,
though, that even enlightened parents who give proper guidance have
no guarantee their kids will make it through safely. "You could
be the best parent in the world and sometimes it just doesn't work
out."
* * *
The fight was over fast. Katrina punched Deanna in the chest. Deanna
fought back. Another girl grabbed Deanna in a headlock and brought
her to the ground, shouting for Katrina to hit her. The girl, Jhila
Zarebi, later said she was trying to break up the fight and police
said they found no evidence she was aiding Katrina, but Jhila received
death threats and never returned to Samo.
What was wrong? Why was Deanna not moving, not making a sound though
her eyes were open? Kids thought she'd had the wind knocked out of
her. Not one person saw a knife. Police never found the knife but
from the coroner's description of the wound, they suspect it was a
punch knife that's held in the fist so the blade protrudes through
the fingers. Katrina hurried to her black Jeep Cherokee, yelling for
Sabrina to come. Sabrina hesitated, then ran back to Deanna and kicked
her. Tim rose up in rage, grabbed Sabrina and shoved her away.
Zoe Blake, one of Deanna's friends, was trying to help her stand.
Come on, get up. But Deanna wasn't moving and Zoe couldn't lift her.
She's bleeding!
It was dark and Deanna was wearing a navy sweat shirt so no one could
see blood but Zoe felt it on her own arms. Tim and Ryan were trying
to lift Deanna when Taylor Brunk, a junior from Samo, drove up to
join the party. Zoe yelled, "You've got to help us!" She
and two other girls got in back of the car. Tim and Ryan carried Deanna
over and laid her on top of the girls.
"Where do we take her?"
"The hospital. Fast!"
Days later, people asked, why didn't they call 911? The UCLA Trauma
Center was five minutes away. Were they afraid they'd get in trouble?
Zoe said, "911 did not cross my mind. I didn't know she'd been
stabbed. I was concentrating on holding her head up and I wanted to
get the hell out of there. We all knew Santa Monica Hospital."
Deanna was making noises and then her eyes closed. Zoe took perfume
from her purse and held it under Deanna's nose. Wake up, please, wake
up!
* * *
Around 11:30, Harriet Maran went up to Deanna's room, hoping she'd
come in the back door and gone to sleep. But the bed was empty. Harriet
started writing her a note:
You are never going to leave again without telling me where you're
going and leaving a phone number.
You didn't finish taking out the trash...
Suddenly Ilja yelled from the living room. "The emergency room
called. Deanna's been stabbed!"
When the Marans rushed into the hospital, five kids were standing
in the waiting room but their eyes skittered away. The nurse on duty
wouldn't tell them anything; she had to page the doctor.
"Is she alive?" Harriet cried.
"Please, have a seat in the lounge," the nurse said.
Harriet grabbed her shoulders. "Can't you just say if she's
alive?"
* * *
The cell phones rang all night. Everyone was crying. Everyone felt
wracked with guilt. Russell Rathner, who'd brought Deanna to the party,
was out on the street, driving his fists into palm trees until his
knuckles were ripped and bleeding. Tim Livingston, who'd gone home
with Russell, called his mother at 4 a.m. "Mom? Mom?" he
rasped.
"What?" she said.
"Deanna's dead. Mom? I didn't protect her."
Sunday morning, Colin called Sabrina, who was shocked. "That
girl died?!" she said. Colin said, "Don't worry, don't think
about it. Just chill."
The West Los Angeles police arrested Katrina and Sabrina on a murder
warrant at 2 p.m. Katrina had already taken what the coroner said
was the equivalent of 43 capsules of 75 mg. of nortriptylene or Pamelor.
Angelique Bernstein declined to be interviewed, but friends, who asked
that their names be withheld, said she was furious with police--and
is currently suing them--for letting her daughter die. She made constant
trips to the police station and last August 4, was arrested and charged
with battery on a policy officer.
The District Attorney filed one charge of battery, a misdemeanor,
against Sabrina Bernstein and no charges against anyone else. A Juvenile
Court judge made Sabrina a ward of the court but allowed her to stay
at home on probation, requiring her to do one hundred hours of community
service and pay $100 to a reparation fund.
The Marans, outraged at the lightness of the charge and the failure
of the D.A. to hold others accountable, are suing Katrina's family
and the Hendler family who owned the house in Westwood for wrongful
death.
* * *
A memorial service for Deanna was held in the Greek Theater at Samo
High, with fifteen hundred people shivering in the strong November
wind, including Howie Hendler and his father. The theme was non violence.
Deanna's sisters announced that they'd set up the Deanna Maran Scholarship
Fund for Non Violence, and hoped to create violence awareness classes
for schools. Lucy Suarez, a friend of Deanna's, said, "I regret
every single time that I have been around a fight and cheered it on
rather than breaking it up."
One of Deanna's teachers, Anoushka Franke, urged the crowd not to
feel guilty. "No one here is responsible for our loss, and your
guilt will only increase the tragedy," she said. "Deanna
would want you to heal. If you really want to honor Deanna, make your
commitment to non violence permanent."
Her words opened a rift in the community between those who feel that
everyone involved-kids, parents, families-have suffered enough, and
those who want more people held accountable. The second group believe
that feeling good and self esteem are more valued in this culture
than moral responsibility. They were outraged at the minimal charges
filed by the District Attorney's office. A teacher who worked with
Deanna in middle school said, "If this had happened in South
Central, they'd have thrown a lot more kids in jail." Another
teacher pointed out that if it had happened in South Central, "we
wouldn't have heard about it. It wouldn't be in the news."
There was a second rift between those parents who threw up their
hands and said, we can't keep our kids in a box, we have to let them
learn from experience, and parents who wanted to install global positioning
systems on kids' cell phones so they could monitor their movements.
Many of the teens who went to the party on Thayer are still waking
up at night in tears, or screaming, and have not gone to more parties.
Tim Livingston says, "You can't stop yourself from having any
fun the rest of your life. But now, I'll be much more cautious. I'll
be more afraid of…like, death."
* * *
The problem with accountability, I began to see, is that it extends
with tentacles all through the community: the girl who stabbed Deanna;
the friends who cheered; the parents who were not on deck; the people
who supplied the beer and drugs that fueled tempers and impulsivity;
the school officials who passed the troubled girl along like a hot
potato; the doctors who prescribed anti-depressants for teens; and
on and on to the very culture in which all this festers, the culture
that glamorizes violence.
Two people who've been wrestling with this many-armed beast, Linda
Taylor and Howard Adelman, share an office in the psychology building
at UCLA. As directors of the School Mental Health Project, they coordinate
research and funnel information to schools and parents. On a recent
morning, Linda said, "We're starting to have a richer understanding
of the question you're posing: how have kids from good, liberal, middle-class
families gotten so derailed?" Howard said there was no easy answer
because many factors have changed simultaneously. Drugs are stronger
than they were twenty years ago; sex can kill; weapons are available
on the Internet; kids have instant communication; parents have more
money, bigger homes and more cars; and, perhaps most significantly,
parenting style has changed.
Howard stood and walked to the window looking out on the campus.
"Raising kids is really hard and there's no simple fix,"
he said. If parents try to be too vigilant, they risk starting a vicious
cycle of escalating punishment and greater rebellion. Linda said parents
need to be creative, to give kids opportunities that may be more exciting
than kicking back and smoking.
"Look out the window," Howard said. "Don't lose sight
of the fact that plenty of kids are growing up just fine."
I watched the young people with backpacks streaming out of classes
and realized he was right. Most of the kids who went to the party
on Thayer would make it to college in a few years. Not all.
I thought about the ceremony held for Deanna last November on the
first anniversary of her death. More than a hundred of her friends,
family, teachers and coaches gathered at her uncle's house on the
beach in Malibu where she'd loved to surf. They built a bonfire, played
volleyball, ate a Philipino feast, burned joss paper and made wishes
for good luck in the life to come.
Just as the sun was setting, Deanna's sisters and brother and a score
of friends swam or paddled out on long boards into the icy surf. They
formed a circle and talked about Deanna. Some were crying, others
shouted, "I'm cold, but I don't care! I love you, Lala!"
They poured her her ashes from a ziplock bag into the sea. No one
spoke for a time, and when the ashes began to sink they caught a wave
and rode back to shore.
For information about nonviolence awareness, browse to http://www.maranfoundation.org
