Who is Kamilah O'Connor? Landmark Middle School assistant principal 'failed to act' against Diego Stolz's bullies
MORENO VALLEY, CALIFORNIA: Kamilah O’Connor was one of the assistant principals of Landmark Middle School in the Moreno Valley Unified School District in California, where 13-year-old Diego Stolz was bullied and killed by two 14-year-old students identified as J.D. and M.E.
Stolz was a middle schooler at Landmark Middle School in Moreno Valley, California. On September 16, 2019, he was bullied by two teenagers who sucker-punched him in the head, causing him to fall down.
When he fell, Stolz hit his head on a concrete pillar and lost consciousness. He died nine days later due to a massive brain injury.
How is Kamilah O’Connor responsible for Diego Stolz’s death?
Kamilah O’Connor “failed” to protect Stolz when she had promised to do so.
In the wrongful death lawsuit filed in 2020, Stolz’s legal guardians, his uncle and aunt Felipe and Juana Salcedo, claimed that the school authorities did not take necessary steps despite being alerted of Stolz getting bullied, per CNN.
The lawsuit claimed that the school administration “completely disregarded such warnings and did absolutely nothing to stop the bullying,” before accusing the Moreno Valley Unified School District and its employees of “blatantly ignoring red flags that could have saved Diego’s life.”
The lawsuit claimed that after being bullied in the 2018-19 school year, the miscreants started bullying Stolz at the beginning of the 2019-20 school year.
On Thursday, September 12, days before his fatal assault, Stolz was punched in the head, after which he sought help from a science teacher.
The science teacher later reported the incident to one of the assistant principals, presumably O’Connor, while adding that the bullying incident was probably recorded in the surveillance cameras. The suit states that the assistant principal did not check the footage despite the science teacher’s request.
The next day, Diego went to the assistant principal with the adult daughter of his legal guardian. The AP allegedly promised to suspend the bullies for three days and change their schedules so Stolz would not be in the vicinity of the bullies. He was also sent back home for the rest of the day.
However, when Stolz returned to school on Monday, he found the bullies, J.D. and M.E., present there, per CNN.
Per a witness video, J.D. and M.E. confronted Stolz and began assaulting him. Due to their punches, Stolz hit his head on a concrete pillar, losing consciousness.
He did not regain consciousness and passed away after nine days, sustaining a massive brain injury, per Daily Mail. Per the source, the major reason for this was that the Assistant Principal "failed to act" on her words.
Asserting that Stolz’s untimely death could have been prevented if the school acted in a timely manner, his family attorney Dave Ring said in a press release, “Diego's death was preventable if this school had simply prioritized an anti-bullying policy,” per Daily Mail.
Attorney Nail Gehlawat, along with Dave Ring, further accused the administrators of not fulfilling their duties, and said, “His death was entirely preventable, if administrators at his middle school has done their jobs.”
He continued, “On the Thursday prior to the fatal assault, which was on Monday, Diego was assaulted by one of the same bullies at the school,” adding that when Stolz returned to school on Monday, the bullies were not suspended and they brought in the fatal attack.
Gehlawat criticized the AP, declaring, “She certainly made a promise to the family and did not follow through with that.”
He also strongly condemned the lack of communication among the school’s administrators, saying, “One of the assistant principals had information about Diego being bullied and assaulted, and she did not share that information with her fellow administrators, the other vice principal and the principal at the school, and on the day Diego was fatally assaulted she was not at school that day.”
Where is Kamilah O’Connor now?
Following the fatal assault in Landmark Middle School, the Moreno Valley Unified School District relieved Principal Scott Walker and Assistant Principal Kamilah O’Connor from their duties, per Fox 11.
O'Connor apparently got a job as Principal of John Knight Middle School in Dixon, California in 2020 and worked there as principal at least till the beginning of 2023 per updates posted on the school page. However, now Bob Bugalski is the Principal, leaving O'Connor's current job unknown.
The University of California, Los Angeles and California State Polytechnic University - Pomona graduate has a teaching experience of almost 20 years.
Per O’Connor’s LinkedIn profile, which is not up to date, she served as Assistant Principal in the Moreno Valley Unified School District for more than four years.