[UPDATE: Sept. 25, 8:20 a.m.] Rabbi Yisroel Levine of Chabad of Oak Park led the funeral service of Yeshiva of Los Angeles Girls High School (YULA) Tsofia Mesica, who died on Monday in an incident involving a car.
“We’re told that kids were running around doing silly things with the car the way teenagers do and it was some kind of terrible accident,” Rabbi Shlomo Bistritzky of Chabad of the Conejo, who was also a participant in the service Thursday evening at Mount Sinai Memorial Parks and Mortuary, told the Journal.
The Mesica family belongs to Chabad of the Conejo.
The Mesica family is a “tremendous source of strength to the community with unshakable faith. It’s amazing how the community came together to share in their grief,” Bistritzky told the Journal.
Chava Tombosky’s daughter and Mesica were classmates at YULA. In an interview following the service, she said Mesica was “the friendliest, happiest, most social child.”
She was among hundreds of people, including high school students and faculty from YULA, YULA girls high school head of school Rabbi Abraham Lieberman among them, who attended the service.
[UPDATE: Sept. 24, 2:44 p.m.] The funeral for Yeshiva of Los Angeles Girls High School (YULA) student Tsofia Mesica, who died on Monday in an incident involving a car, is set for 4 p.m. today at Mount Sinai Memorial Parks and Mortuary, in Simi Valley.
[UPDATE: Sept. 23, 7:24 a.m.] Los Angeles Police Department Valley Traffic Detective Bill Bustos described an investigation of an incident involving a car that impacted and killed a juvenile believed to be Tsofia Mesica of Yeshiva of Los Angeles Girls High School (YULA) as ongoing.
In a phone interview on Wednesday, Bustos declined to identify the victim, a juvenile but said the impact of a Honda SUV caused her to die.
“The actual specificity of how that developed is still being investigated,” he said.
He declined to identify “the person driving the car.”
“This group of young people were socializing, at that point there was a Honda SUV… being driven by a male, not identifying him for the same reason [we’re not identifying the victim] but something happened, the car impacted that girl. The actual specificity of how that developed is still being investigated. Sufficed to say the girl suffered serious injuries…unfortunately she made it to the hospital … [but] lost her life,” Bustos said. “Medical staff could not do anything for her.”
Police are planning on speaking with the group of people who were on the scene of the incident but will not do so immediately because of Yom Kippur.
“I realize it's a Jewish holiday coming up and it's going to be more difficult,” he said.
Bustos said the incident took place “at approximately 9:15 in the evening” on Monday, involving a “group of teens, high-school age, on Reseda Blvd., where Reseda dead ends on … a park and you can see the Valley and so on and many people go up there during the day and go hiking. It was night and this group of young people were socializing [before the incident occurred].”
The Los Angeles Daily news is reporting a 15-year-old girl killed Monday night by a car in Tarzana was Tsofia Mesica of Agoura Hills, a student at Yeshiva of Los Angeles Girls High School (YULA).
From the Daily News: “Friends identified the 15-year-old girl was who was killed Monday night in Tarzana as Sophia Mesica of Agoura Hills. She attended Yeshiva of Los Angeles Girls High School (YULA) on Robertson Boulevard in Los Angeles.
Authorities have declined to release her name because she is a juvenile, said Detective William Bustos of the Los Angeles Police Department’s Valley Traffic Division.
The accident was reported around 9:15 p.m. Monday in the 3500 block of Reseda Boulevard, Bustos said.
The teenager was among a group of 10 to 15 friends who were socializing at the top of Reseda, a remote area where some hiking trails start.”
Correction [Sept. 24, 2:43 p.m.]: This article originally mispelled the deceased's name.
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