Stabbing wasn't boy's first

BY COLBY FRAZIER
DAILY SOUND STAFF WRITER

A 16-year-old boy who was stabbed last Friday night and walked himself to the emergency room at Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital did the same thing in 2006, according to police records.
Sgt. Lorenzo Duarte, a spokesman for the Santa Barbara Police Department, said the boy, just shy of his 15th birthday on Oct. 29, 2006, was stabbed near the 2800 block of De la Vina Street and walked himself to the hospital.


Similar to the 2006 incident, Duarte said the boy could not describe the people who assaulted him and failed to remember the exact location of the assault.
But on the night of the most recent stabbing, Lt. Gail Torres said a fight was reported minutes before the boy entered the emergency room on De la Vina and Nogales Streets, which is a block away from the hospital.
Torres said on Friday that police believed the stabbing was related to the fight.
Duarte said police dubbed the 2006 stabbing as a gang related incident, but the motives behind the most recent stabbing have not been established.
In 2006, the boy told police he was stabbed by a number of Hispanic teens that jumped from a vehicle and assaulted him.
Duarte said yesterday that the boy had been released from the hospital.