Stabbed teenager taunted with homophobic slurs in LA beach attack that left him with punctured lung
A 16-year-old spent days in intensive care after being attacked on Dockweiler Beach at a beach party on 10 February. (GoFundMe/Frankie)
A 16-year-old teen boy reportedly spent days in intensive care after being stabbed and beaten on a Southern Californian beach. The attackers also yelled homophobic slurs at the victim.
The incident is believed to have occurred at a beach on Dockweiler Beach, close to Los Angeles International airport, on 10 February. Footage of the incident has been circulating on social media.
According to the Advocate, the victim’s mother, who wishes to be known only as Frankie, said her son’s female friend was attacked by five or six other teenagers.
Her son, Donta, tried to help before a “guy asked him if he wanted to fight, and my son didn’t want to fight him,” she went on.
Donta was then attacked by the group who beat, kicked and stabbed him three times in the back. He spent days in intensive care after suffering a punctured lung, concussion and internal bleeding.
“Doctors had to collapse a lung to repair the other one,” Frankie said, according to ABC Eyewitness News. “They had to take a camera in his stomach to see if there was anything else going because there was so much blood.”
The Los Angeles Police Department said some juvenile suspects have been identified and are being interviewed. Detectives are aware of video of the incident and are investigating the footage but are yet to confirm if it is being treated as a hate crime.
Frankie has launched a GoFundMe page in a bid to raise money for her son’s medical bills and to help her move out of California. More than $13,400 (£10,600) of the $50,000 (£39,500) goal has been raised. The page also features pictures of her son’s injuries.
Comments left on the page called her son a hero for standing up for his friend, while others wished him a speedy recovery.
