Fatally injured girl is mourned

Paola Montufar was well-known in her tight-knit, working-class neighborhood just off a busy thoroughfare leading to Pechanga Casino in Temecula.

In the California Sunset subdivision, an area teeming with kids, neighbors got used to seeing the 15-year-old palling around with friends and her little brother, Rogelio, who was always by her side.

“She was a very sweet, energetic, pretty girl. She was nice to everybody,” said Irene Gonzalez, a neighbor and mother of some of Paola’s friends. “It was hard not to be her friend.”

On Feb. 12, Paola stepped into a fight that apparently erupted between her boyfriend and her former boyfriend on a nearby street.

The scuffle grew to include as many as 10 teenagers, sheriff’s officials said. During the fight, another girl apparently struck Paola, who was knocked to the ground. Her head hit a curb. “It was pretty much a teenager disagreement, and it just got out of hand,” Gonzalez said.

Riverside County sheriff’s deputies found Paola lying on the street without a pulse, her boyfriend by her side. She was taken to Rady Children’s Hospital in San Diego, where she was placed on life support.

On Saturday, she was pronounced dead.

Sheriff’s officials are investigating the incident but have not arrested anyone in connection her death.

The news has shocked and saddened the girl’s neighborhood. Several youths and adults on her block passed through the subdivision asking for donations to help pay for her funeral.

They offered to cut the grass of those who contributed. Almost everyone on the street gave money. By Monday night, they’d raised $900, Gonzalez said.

The daughter of a construction worker and a casino employee, Paola was a student at Great Oak High School in Temecula.

Her family had thrown her a quinceañera – a 15-year-old coming-out party common in Mexican American families – at a ranch in October.

“She looked like a princess,” Gonzalez said. “She was on a white horse. Kids were running free. It was a real beautiful day.”

She is the third 15-year-old Great Oak High School student to die this school year.

In an unrelated November incident, twins Narissa and Nikita Williams were shot to death, along with their mother, their mother’s boyfriend and his 17-year-old son. That case is unresolved.

sam.quinones@latimes.com

daniela.perdomo@ latimes.com