Students walk out at El Modena High School in Orange after special needs students dies in golf cart crash

Dozens of students at El Modena High School held a rally on campus Thursday morning, Sept. 12 in support of a 15-year-old special needs student who died in a golf cart crash earlier this week.

News cameras captured the students’ demands for new staff members at the school and for details about what happened to their classmate Emmanuel “Manny” Perez.

Orange police said that on Monday, Sept. 9 officers were called to the school, on East Spring Street, where Perez had crashed into a pole.

By the time officers arrived to take the report at about 10 a.m., paramedics had already taken the injured boy to a hospital, Orange police Sgt. Phil McMullin said. Officers took statements from those present but did not suspect any criminal circumstances, he said.

The teen, from Orange, died later that night.

Students at the Thursday rally contended the incident was avoidable.

“As a community we stand here and we want justice for Manny,” said one student, a senior at the school. “We want the aide who was in charge (of) his security and safety to be charged and to be punished.”

The students chanted, “Special needs, special care, ElMo doesn’t care” using their campus’s abbreviated moniker.

District officials refuted some claims that Perez was left unattended. In a statement they said the boy had gotten into the parked cart and that two aides who were supervising him tried to persuade him out of it and attempted to stop the vehicle.

“We understand how difficult this week has been for many of our students,” said Superintendent Gunn Marie Hansen of the Orange Unified School District. “We sympathize with their frustration and sadness. Frankly, this anxiety is being fueled by unfounded rumors and misinformation on social media, and that is unfortunate.”