[UPDATED with I.D., Media Racism Charge:] Joshua Aguirre, OC Homicide No. 38: Fatal Stabbing Begins Day of Violence in Anacrime

See the update at the end of this post with the dead young man's name and a college staff member's accusation of local media racism.

ORIGINAL POST, OCT. 1, 9 A.M.: Two men walking along West Ball Road near South Roberts Street in Anaheim early Saturday discovered a man who had been stabbed and was clinging to life.

The stabbing victim died shortly after his arrival at a local hospital.

See also:

Mikel Anthony Williams I.D.'d as Fatal Stabbing Victim in Alley; Joseph Robert Suess Held

Ryan Nichols Coale Indicted for Murder of Another Teen on Anaheim Junior High Court

Daniel Rowlett, OC Homicide No. 23: Found Stabbed in Truck

Anaheim Police, who received that call around 2:20 a.m. Saturday, have not yet released the victim's name nor linked the murder to gang activity.


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It is also unknown at this hour if the Ball Road stabbing was related at all to an unidentifed 22-year-old being stabbed in the abdomen around 10 a.m. Saturday in the 1200 block of South Empire Street. Several males scattered when police arrived. Fortunately, the victim's injuries are not life-threatening.

By the time of the second stabbing, it had been a busy morning for Anaheim Police, which also dealt with an unidentified man being shot in the leg in the 1300 block of East Wakefield Avenue around 3 a.m. A shooter description has not been released.

Photo courtesy of Damian Renault

The late Joshua Aguirre (left) with Jacob Baumgartner, a tutor with the Orange Coast College Student Success Center.

UPDATE, OCT. 18, 9:21 A.M.: Anaheim Police Sgt. Robert Dunn, the department spokesman, identified the dead young man as Joshua Aguirre, 18, of Anaheim. Investigators still have not released the identities or descriptions of a suspect or suspects in the late September slaying.

Aguirre and friends were talking in front of a house when "a drunk man" approached them and started a verbal argument that turned violent, according to another friend of the deceased speaking at a campus memorial held earlier this month at Orange Coast College (OCC) in Costa Mesa, reports the student newspaper Coast Report.

He was remembered on campus as "nice," "cool" and "determined," trying to parlay a college education into a better lot in life. Aguirre used his artistic talents to participate in the creation of a mural now located at an Afghanistan school for girls, Damien Renault, an OCC Guardian Scholars/MAPS program staff member, tells the newspaper.

"He was constantly trying to get away from his past but the problem is with all of the issues that go on in the world, when there becomes no other choice than to go back to the location that you came from in the first place," Renault reportedly observed. "It's a massive struggle."

Renault is also said to have accused the local media of ignoring the story, reportedly saying, "If it were a--you know horribly sounding racist--if it were a white thing would there be all kinds of information everywhere."

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