After an hours-long standoff with SWAT officers and Los Angeles police, a suspect accused in the fatal stabbing of 17-year-old Xavier Chavarin was taken into custody on March 8.
Law enforcement surrounded the location of the suspect, identified as 32-year-old David Zapata, who barricaded himself inside his family’s home in Alhambra on Wednesday morning.
Crisis negotiators were eventually able to convince Zapata to exit the house and surrender before being handcuffed by Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) officers just after 9 a.m.
LAPD Cmdr. German Hurtado told reporters at a press conference following the arrest that the suspect has had previous “mental health incidents” but did not elaborate on the details of those events.
“He is in custody now. He is not going to be able to keep anybody else in danger, and it was done in a peaceful manner,” Hurtado said at the scene.
LAPD is also seeking out a second suspect in connection with the killing who was a passenger with Zapata in the vehicle used to flee the scene, officials said during a news conference March 9.
“There appears to be another individual, a suspect that [he] drove away with in the first incident,” LAPD Lt. Ryan Rabbett said. “We are looking into that. That part of the investigation is still ongoing.”
Rabbett added that Chavarin and Zapata did not know each other, and both cases will be handed over to Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascón for prosecution.
The Los Angeles Fire Department paramedics attempted to save Chavarin when they arrived just after 4 p.m., but the teenager succumbed to his injuries and died at the scene. LAPD obtained surveillance footage of the incident, which showed Zapata wielding a large knife.
When police arrived and began their investigation, they connected the same suspect to another stabbing of a different victim that occurred less than two miles away on the same day.
City News Service reported the suspect was wearing the same clothes in both incidents—a long black jacket, a black shirt underneath, black pants, black shoes, and a black baseball hat with white lettering. The other victim, identified as 33-year-old Daniel Villalobos, survived, LAPD said March 9.
He was released from the hospital in stable condition, police said.
Chavarin was a straight-A student at Woodrow Wilson Senior High School in Los Angeles and would have graduated in a few months, according to his family.
“It breaks my heart, the fact that they just took him away from me,” Chavarin’s mother Laura Frias told reporters during a vigil earlier this week. “I don’t know what to say, just so heartbroken—he was my love, my everything.”
More than 10 counselors were added to the high school’s staff to support students who were grieving this week.
