LOS ANGELES — At least five police officers are under investigation after a woman died during a violent arrest in which an officer kicked her genitals, police officials said.

Alesia Thomas, 35, died July 22.

The confrontation with officers occurred after she abandoned her 3-year-old and 12-year-old children at a police station around 2 a.m. and they wandered inside, drawing the attention of an officer, police said.

“The officer said, `Hey, what are you kids doing here?’ They said, `Well our mom doesn’t want us anymore. She dropped us off at the police station,’” Cmdr. Andrew Smith, a department spokesman, told KTTV. Smith said the children told the officers they hadn’t eaten for a couple of days.

Police Cmdr. Bob Green told the Times that the woman was giving up the children because she was a drug addict who could not care for them.