Mikkel Andersen was 17 years old and off on a great adventure.
He’d come to Redondo Beach from his home in Copenhagen, Denmark in order to learn English at the EF International Language School. He had visions of star-studded Los Angeles and took his camera everywhere, enthusiastic to learn about the American culture he’d only seen on television. He was shy – especially around girls – and seemed so young and fresh-faced that friends took to calling him “Baby Face.”
But in the wee hours of Oct. 9, Andersen got left behind.
Police believe that Andersen signed up for a “party bus” organized by another student that went to Hollywood the previous night. Large amounts of alcohol were allegedly supplied as the group of roughly 30 students traveled to a club in Hollywood, and on the way home the bus made a “potty break” stop at a gas station off Century Boulevard and Figueroa Street.
The bus left the station without Andersen, who apparently tried to walk home. According to the California Highway Patrol, he was killed as he tried to cross the 110 Freeway on foot at about 3:30 a.m.
Malene Pedersen, a 20-year-old fellow Dane who also studies at the language school in Redondo, said Andersen’s death was even more difficult to accept because of the circumstances that surrounded it.
“It was really rough because the way it happened,” she said. “Danes, when we go out, every time we take really good care of each other. There was no one there to help him when he needed help. That is very un-Danish. It hit really hard. We are not really used to that in Denmark.”
Pedersen had just met Mikkel two weeks before his death and said that he’d been extremely relieved to find somebody else from his country here. She said it is not uncommon for young Danes to go abroad, as they graduate from high school at 15 or 16 and often travel before entering university later on. But Mikkel was one of the youngest students at the school. “He was the baby of the group,” she said.
The Redondo Beach Police Department has charged Jeremy Touche, a 22-year-old student from France, with a variety of misdemeanor charges connected to the events of that night, including supplying alcohol to a minor. Touche allegedly arranged the entire evening, including renting the bus. Police believe he sent a mass text-message out to other students to market the event and charged each $40 dollars for the bus ride and alcohol. Coroner’s reports indicated Andersen’s blood-alcohol at the time of his death was .27, more than three times the legal limit for driving in California.
Touche, who faces six months to a year in county jail, has been expelled from the language school. On his Facebook page this week, he listed his favorite quotes as “Why not…I don’t CARE…! Fuck you!” He listed “partying” as his only interest under the “activities” category.
Ironically, on Aug. 8, the very day before Andersen’s death, City Prosecutor Brenda Wells reached a plea bargain arrangement with another student regarding another “party bus” Hollywood excursion that led to the alleged rape of 20-year-old South Korean girl who was also a student at EF International School.
In that incident, Redondo Beach police believe that Jember Martelo-Oca, a 20-year-old student from Venezuela, arranged a bus trip to a Hollywood club on the night of Aug. 6. According a Los Angeles Police Department investigation, the girl met 19-year-old Hector Lopez on Hollywood Boulevard.
“The victim was on a party bus where alcohol was being served,” said LAPD Det. Kimberly Porter. “She gets to the location in Hollywood, meets the suspect, he takes her to a secondary location and forcibly rapes her.”
Porter said the incident occurred “behind a business.” She said the LAPD have recently keyed in on party buses and has begun pulling them over and checking for any minors being served alcohol.
RBPD began investigating the party buses being arranged by language school students after the August incident. Martello-Oca, it turns out, was Touche’s roommate with a host family in Hermosa Beach. He pled guilty to serving alcohol without a license and was sentenced to three years’ probation and 240 hours of community service.
“I think it’s a tragedy that he would have organized an event such as this and such dire consequences would come of it,” Wells said. “In the process of arranging such an event, basically he was thumbing his nose at the laws of this country. I don’t know what the laws hold in his country, but here we have a drinking age and that is where the tragedy came in – because I just can’t help but think but for his actions she may not have suffered, really, for a lifetime…this aggressive, violent assault against her.”
The RBPD, LAPD, investigators from the state department of Alcoholic Beverage Control, and officials from the language school are working together to address ongoing problems associated with the party buses.
“We took this very seriously from the beginning and really acted proactively because of the rape and the allegations that these party buses are frequently coming from here,” said RBPD Sgt. Phil Keenan. “Then, with this death on the freeway, this is at a critical mass. Something needs to be done.”
RBPD Officer Ian Miesen has worked with the school, meeting with students to explain alcohol laws and using “the buddy system” when they are out. He also led the investigation that resulted in the arrests of Touche and Martello-Oca. He said that there have been ongoing concerns associated with an EF school apartment where students live on Avenue G, but those were essentially limited to noise complaints.
As regards the party buses, Miesen acknowledged the school is somewhat constrained.
“I think they are limited, with kids over 18, as far as what they do outside of school hours,” Miesen said. “But kids under 18, they are essentially acting as a guardian.”
Francy Ronayne, a spokesperson for the IF International Language Schools, said that alcohol is prohibited in any school residences. She said the school has hired additional security to monitor and enforce the school’s rules, and noted that whenever school officials catch wind of a party bus event, they notify police.
“The challenge inherent in our international school community is bringing together students from around the world, some of whom are under the age of 21, but can legally buy and consume alcohol in their own countries,” she said. “They come to the United States and think American laws are strict….We have expelled students before for purchasing alcohol for minors, and we have done so again with the students who organized the October and August party buses.”
Ronayne also said that that the school was not Andersen’s legal guardian. She said his mother was.
Miesen still questioned the school’s responsibility for knowing the whereabouts of a minor who was under its care.
“If we had stopped him after hours and had to turn him over to an adult, we’d be contacting the school,” Miesen said. “His parents are over in Denmark.”
Eddie Solt, a former tour guide with the school, said that party buses and limousines have been problematic for the last few years.
“The limo companies and drivers establish relationships with these kids, and I think that is what kept perpetuating this problem, even though the school kept trying to stop this kind of stuff,” Solt said. “Kids come and go. There’s turnover. But the limo companies keep establishing relationships with new students.”
Miesen said that the investigation is ongoing and includes the question of how much responsibility the bus company – Whittier-based Luxury Sports Limousines, which provides drivers, as well – might bear.
Sal Zamora, the owner of the company, declined comment for this article. But this week he told a limo, charter, and tour industry website called LCT blog that he does not allow illegal drinking on his vehicles. When asked what happened in this incident, he replied to LCT blog, “What am I supposed to do, check everyone’s ID?”
Solt said the school organizes its own, safer, more controlled events, but that some of the students come from fairly well-to-do backgrounds and have come to the U.S. expecting to do what they want. He said some underage students regularly bribed their way into clubs on Hermosa’s Pier Avenue, for example, giving bouncers as much as $100 to gain entry.
“The school doesn’t deserve a bad rap for the small percentage of the students that participate in these kind of shenanigans,” Solt said. “They are mostly really good students – some of the coolest people I’ve met in my whole life. But there are a few over-privileged, spoiled kids that ruin it for the rest of the students who are cool and actually here to learn English and learn L.A. culture.”
Keenan said there has been a realization that Redondo Beach essentially has a small college in its midst.
“The school has been cooperative, the bus company has been cooperative, the students have been more or less cooperative,” he said. “All the parties that own a part of this thing are cooperating. It’s something we’ve had to learn, but nothing new for cops that work college campuses. It’s pretty much par for the course – drinking excessively, drug use, rapes, date rapes, traffic fatalities. These are kids away from their parents for the first time, up to 400 kids. It’s like our own little college campus within the city.”
Wells said she hopes the prosecution of the two students who allegedly organized these party buses sends a message.
“The first step is to prosecute these types of offenses so hopefully the conduct will stop,” she said. “Because if we don’t prosecute here, and just allow the agencies investigating the rape or the death to do the investigation, we are basically saying that individuals involved at the first stage are not responsible. We want to make sure that these types of offenses don’t happen again. Now we are aware of it, and we want to bring it to an end.” ER
