The death of a 10-year-old girl who died Friday after a fight with a classmate in Long Beach has been ruled a homicide, coroners officials said this morning.
Fifth grader Joanna Ramos had no visible injuries from the altercation in an alley near Frances Willard Elementary School, but she later vomited and complained of headaches.
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Witnesses told police the alley fight, which may have been over a boy,
lasted about a minute. Ramos walked back to the campus for the remainder
of an after-school program before her cousin picked her up.
She stopped breathing later Friday and underwent surgery before being kept in the intensive care unit in critical condition. She was pronounced dead around 9 p.m.
An autopsy was performed Sunday. The coroner said the cause of death was blunt force trauma to the head.
No arrests have been made. School officials say they are cooperating with law enforcement and keeping in contact with the parents of both girls about any developments.
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OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.