Girl, 10, died after school fight

A 10-year-old girl who died following an after-school fight with an 11-year-old female student suffered head trauma in a case the coroner’s office yesterday said was a homicide.

Joanna Ramos, who would have turned 11 on Mar 12, underwent emergency surgery for a blood clot on her brain late on Friday after she began vomiting and complaining of a headache, said older sister Vanessa Urbina, 17.

Joanna was unconscious by the time she arrived at the emergency room, but hospital staff revived her three times before she went into surgery, Urbina said.

“They did surgery on her brain because she had a blood clot, and after surgery the doctor said she was still alive, and then a few minutes later he comes back and tells us her heart stopped and they couldn’t bring her back.”

Coroner’s Lt Fred Corral said Ramos died of blunt force trauma to the head, but didn’t have further details about the injuries.

There were seven witnesses to the fight, which lasted less than a minute, police said. It didn’t involve any weapons and no one was knocked to the ground.

Detectives have interviewed family and friends of both girls, but there is no indication that Joanna was bullied, police said.

“They took off their backpacks, and they put their hair in a bun, and then that’s when they said ‘go’ and that’s when they started hitting each other,” Joanna’s friend and classmate Maggie Martinez told KNBC, a Los Angeles television station.

Martinez and other friends said they tried to stop the fight, but were held back by boys who were watching and wanted it to continue.

Joanna’s sister remembered her as a happy child who liked to sing, dance and watch soap operas, and loved having her hair curled by her older sister. She had asked Urbina to curl her hair for her birthday in two weeks.

“She was so young for this to happen” Urbina said. “She was so happy and so many people loved her.”