A 16-year-old Florida boy wanted for stabbing a teenage girl died Wednesday after suffering a medical episode while in custody of Daytona Beach police, according to a news release.
Chief Jakari Young identified the boy as Aaron Moten during a news conference Friday.
The Daytona Beach Police Department said it was notified by Volusia County deputies at 8:25 p.m. Tuesday of a stabbing call at a home on Imperial Drive, where officers found a 17-year-old girl stabbed multiple times to her body, arms, legs and head.
The girl was hospitalized and is currently in stable condition, police said.
“We got very little information as far as the motive at that specific time but they all were pointing in a specific direction as to which way the suspect fled from the scene,” Young said.
A K-9 team then found the boy lying facedown in the backyard of a property on Continental Drive, according to the release.
“We could tell from our initial contact with him that he appeared to be under the influence of some form of substance just based on our interaction with him,” Young said.
After becoming unresponsive, officers carried the boy to a front yard on the same street to meet with paramedics.
In an incident report, witnesses described the boy hopping a fence into a back yard yelling “I love you” and wailing in pain before police arrived, with one witness having said they observed him “moaning and flailing his left arm” while he was lying on the ground.
“When we located him he was already laying down he was facedown in the backyard and he was kind of just making some illegible statements,” Young said.
The boy was revived before being taken to Halifax Health Medical Center. It was later decided to transfer the boy to Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children in Orlando, but police said he died in transit.
A determination of the exact cause of the boy’s death is pending autopsy results.
“The autopsy was conducted on (Thursday), and it’s still unclear — we won’t know exactly what caused his death until we get that report back,” Young said.
Investigators believe the two teens knew each other.
Before the stabbing, police said the boy was actively listed as a missing juvenile with an arrest warrant out for battery, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and deprivation of the 911 emergency service.
“That was in writing that was related to a domestic incident that occurred the day prior at home with mom,” Young said.
Young said the boy was arrested with minimal force and that officers quickly called for medical assistance.
“They were able to quickly ascertain that he was on some type of substance which was causing his erratic behavior,” he said. “So they took the precautions that were necessary to get him into custody with basically zero use of force.”
The Florida Department of Law Enforcement is involved in the ongoing investigation, police said.
“Most times when we have FDLE Come in. It usually results in me placing some of the involved officers on administrative leave and based on what I’ve seen, that’s not even necessary,” Young said. “So no one’s been placed on administrative leave, but I do want FDLE to have a second set of eyes — I want them to look at it just for transparency purposes.”
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