Boy, 11, fatally stabbed during apparent family dispute

An 11-year-old boy died after he was stabbed multiple times during an apparent family dispute Monday morning in the Westlake community west of downtown Los Angeles, police said.

The boy’s 26-year-old stepfather, who also sustained stab wounds, was being held under guard at County/USC Medical Center as a “person of interest,” police said.

Neighbors said they heard a disturbance shortly before 9 a.m. in a second-floor apartment in the 200 block of South Carondelet Street.

“We heard screaming, and my sister said, ‘Oh, they are fighting,’ ” said Maria Rodriguez, who lives in the building next door.

Rodriguez’s sister, Karen Silvestre, said she heard a woman screaming, “He killed him! He killed him!”

Neighbors said they heard a man in the victim’s apartment building shout that he was a physician and could help the boy. Minutes later, they said, police and paramedics arrived.

When they wheeled the boy out on a stretcher, Rodriguez said, “there was a lot of blood coming out of his mouth and he looked like he was dead already.”

The boy, whose identity has not been released, was taken to Children’s Hospital, where he was pronounced dead, police said.

Officers found the victim’s stepfather on the front lawn of the apartment complex with stab wounds to his shoulder, said LAPD Capt. Gary Walters. The stepfather’s identity also was not released Monday evening.

Investigators spent several hours in the apartment gathering evidence and talking to witnesses, including the boy’s mother and a 6-year-old identified as the victim’s half-brother.

On Monday afternoon, police tape marked the tan three-story stucco building. Neighbors watched as police took photographs of the building’s exterior.

The boy’s mother was expected to make a statement to police at the Rampart Station later Monday.

When the victim’s father was notified, he went to the hospital while his son’s body was still there, Walters said.

Rodriguez said she didn’t know the family well but had exchanged hellos with the mother.

“She was very nice,” Rodriguez said.

lisa.girion@latimes.com

Times staff photographer Bethany Mollenkof contributed to this report.