Levert Leon Jefferson was 56 years old when he died on Sunday, December 15, 2019, five days after an encounter outside a charter school in South Los Angeles. According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner, he died from blunt force trauma sustained near 4029 South Hooper Avenue in the Central-Alameda neighborhood, and the coroner ruled his death a homicide. His family says he was killed by the people who were supposed to be keeping a school safe.
Jefferson was a Black man, a son and a friend to many. "Levert never met a stranger. Everyone he met for some reason just took to him. You know, you always were going to be greeted with a hug, a kiss," his mother, Carol Jefferson, told ABC7 in July 2020. "He did nothing to deserve this."
According to his family and their attorney, at about 7:30 a.m. on December 10, 2019, Levert was running along the sidewalk next to the Center for Advanced Learning, a charter school on South Central Avenue, and was in need of medical attention. They allege that the school's executive director and a security guard used a Taser on him, placed him in a chokehold and held him down with their full body weight. "And after this was all done in an attempt to detain him, instead of trying to call for medical attention and professional attention to help him, they instead killed him," family attorney Toni Jaramilla said at a press conference. He was rushed to a hospital and died five days later.
The family filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the school, its executive director and the security guard. The school did not respond to requests for comment from ABC7, and in July 2020 the Los Angeles Police Department had not provided an update on its investigation. The account of what happened comes from the family's lawsuit; the people named in it have not been charged with any crime, and their side of the story has not been made public.
A homicide ruling by the Medical Examiner means that a death was caused by another person, but it does not by itself mean a crime was committed. Deaths during restraint raise hard questions about when force is justified, and about what happens when a person in crisis is treated as a threat. Families often say that such deaths would draw far more scrutiny if a police officer had been involved.
Central-Alameda is a working-class neighborhood south of downtown Los Angeles, between Central Avenue and the Alameda Street rail corridor, home to many Latino and Black families. Los Angeles recorded about 260 homicides in 2019, among the lowest yearly totals in more than half a century, yet many of those killings still went unsolved.
No arrest or criminal charge connected to the death of Levert Leon Jefferson could be found in news archives or public records. Anyone who saw what happened outside the Center for Advanced Learning on the morning of December 10, 2019, may hold information that matters to his family. Anyone with information can call the Los Angeles Police Department at 877-527-3247 or leave an anonymous tip with Crime Stoppers at 800-222-TIPS.
