Teen in Fistfight Dies; 2nd Is Held : Violence: The victim hit his head in a fall after being struck outside a store near his home, police say. The two had been involved in an earlier dispute.

A fistfight between two 16-year-old boys left one dead after he fell and hit his head, and the other in custody on suspicion of manslaughter, police said Wednesday.

Jesse Jose Lopez of Orange had walked with his brother to the Sav-On Express on South Main Street at 9 p.m. Monday to buy hair gel, family members said.

He ran into a high school acquaintance in the store, and when they met again outside a fight began. Jesse Lopez was hit in the face and fell, striking his head on the pavement, Police Lt. Timm Browne said.

The boy died at 2:40 p.m. Tuesday at UCI Medical Center in Orange.

“We were just all happy going inside the store,” said Adam Lopez, 14, who had taken a break from watching the Lakers game Monday night to go to the store with his brother. “He was going to school the next day and he wanted to buy some hair gel to look nice.”

The store manager detained the suspect until police arrived, Browne said. The boy, who had been shopping with his mother, was taken to Juvenile Hall, and held on suspicion of manslaughter. His name has not been released because of his age.

Browne said Jesse Lopez had no police record.

Adam Lopez said the other teen waited outside the store as the teen’s mother and younger sister sat a short distance away. As the brothers left the store, the teen told Jesse he wanted to talk to him.

“They were just talking for a minute. Then my brother was on the ground,” Adam said.

Jesse Lopez had attended Orange High School for a time but had gotten into a dispute with the same teen with whom he fought Monday night, a friend who declined to give his name said at the Lopez home Wednesday night.

Jesse was transferred to Villa Park High School, where the other teen eventually was transferred as well. Last year, Jesse switched schools again, this time to Richland Continuation School, to catch up on his grades, his parents said.

The Lopez family gathered Wednesday on the porch and in their small front yard and remembered Jesse as an avid basketball and football fan. His hero was Warren Moon, quarterback for the Minnesota Vikings.

“That was his goal: he wanted to meet Moon,” said the boy’s cousin, 19-year-old Jason Maldonado. Earlier this year, Jesse spent an evening closeted in his bedroom drawing a detailed portrait of Moon in his Vikings uniform. And when Moon was with the Houston Oilers, Jesse painted his bedroom, with his father’s help, in baby blue with red trim--Oilers colors. In wood shop, he carved a plaque of the Oilers logo.

“My son was a very happy child,” his mother, Gloria Lopez, said Wednesday. “He never got into gangs. He always walked away, from school to home.”

On Wednesday evening, the family drove the short distance from the home to the Sav-On in the 100 block of South Main Street to pray and place flowers and a portrait of Jesse at the drugstore’s entrance, near the wheelchair ramp where he struck his head.

Jesse’s father said he is unemployed and that the family is seeking donations for funeral expenses. An account has been opened at Orange National Bank at 1201 E. Katella Ave., said Jesse’s aunt, Jessie Maldonado.

A visitation is scheduled at Fairhaven Memorial Park Mortuary in Santa Ana on Sunday from 3 to 8 p.m. The funeral is scheduled for 11 a.m. Monday at Waverly Church in Santa Ana.