A University of Southern California student will not be charged in the fatal stabbing of a car burglary suspect near campus, prosecutors said Thursday.
Ivan Gallegos, 19, of Los Angeles, was booked into jail on suspicion of murder early Tuesday and was being held on $2 million bail after the attack Monday evening, police said.
The victim, Xavier Cerf, 27, was pronounced dead at the scene — an alley behind USC’s Greek Row — shortly after the confrontation Monday evening, according to the district attorney’s office and the county medical examiner.
A charge review worksheet prepared by the district attorney’s office concluded that Gallegos should not be charged, especially because he acted in self-defense after he and two others said they heard the man say he had a gun had.
“We believe that Mr. Gallegos’ actions were motivated by a genuine fear for his life and the lives of others,” District Attorney George Gascón said in a statement Thursday.
USC spokesperson Lauren Bartlett said Tuesday that Gallegos was enrolled as a junior business administration student.
According to the assessment, Gallegos was in a dorm where he lives when he and two other students heard a car alarm going off at the rear of the building, which faces an alley, around 8 p.m. Monday.
They went to investigate because a series of car burglaries had occurred, according to the evaluation. Gallegos had a knife and another witness had a stick, it said.
They found the victim in a 2010 Mercedes-Benz belonging to the home. When confronted, Cerf told the three that the vehicle was calling for him, the document said.
According to the evaluation, the victim was homeless.
The man began to get out of the vehicle and when Gallegos confronted him, he said he had a gun, the evaluation said. All three students who went to investigate the burglary said they heard the man say he had a gun.
The assessment shows that two of the three called 911 and that a man with a gun who broke into cars was injured in a stabbing.
Gallegos said the victim began reaching toward his waist, so he used his left hand to grab the man’s hands, believing he might be trying to reach for a gun, and stabbed him with his right hand, the evaluation said . He stabbed him three more times during a struggle, the document said.
He and the two companions returned to the house to wait for officers, it said. The evaluation shows that there were no indications that the victim had a firearm.
Jail records show Gallegos was arrested about a half hour after officers arrived. He was released Thursday at 12:22 p.m., according to the jail.
The victim’s mother, Yema Jones, told NBC Los Angeles that he was a dancer and comedian who moved to Los Angeles from Texas. He was recently hospitalized for 20 days for an unspecified mental illness and was released on the day of his death. ‘I am lost. I am confused. “I am hurt,” she said.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
