Overview
- The Los Angeles County medical examiner, who issued the finding Tuesday, certified Khimberly Zavaleta Chuquipa’s death as natural from a spontaneous rupture of a congenital brain arteriovenous malformation.
- An AVM is a tangle of fragile blood vessels present at birth that can burst without warning, and the office noted the reported head strike four days earlier without linking it to the bleed.
- Khimberly, 12, was hit on the back of the head with an aluminum water bottle on February 17, returned to the hospital on February 21 with a hemorrhage, underwent surgery, and died on February 25.
- LAPD arrested a juvenile on April 2 on suspicion of murder in the case, and the department has not said whether it will change course after the autopsy ruling.
- The family’s attorney rejects the conclusion and says their negligence lawsuit against LAUSD will continue, a dispute that echoes a 2024 Los Angeles case where an autopsy undercut a presumed link to a school fight.