Police are are questioning two teenaged suspects in the Saturday night stabbing of 12-year-old Luis Martinez of Brooklyn. Initial reports suggested that Martinez, who was found bleeding from multiple wounds on the Jackie Robinson Parkway, was thrown from a car, but police are now saying that he walked there from nearby Highland Park where the stabbing took place to find help. A passing motorist stopped and called 911.
Police sources told the Daily News that Martinez went to the park, which is near his East New York home, to get stoned with Wayne Henderson, 15, and an unnamed 14-year-old girl. Reportedly, Henderson was mad at the kid for "getting him into trouble the last time they smoked pot," and he dealt with that by stabbing him, one report says 12 times, in the neck and chest.
An ambulance took Martinez to Jamaica Medical Center, where he had emergency surgery to close punctures in his lung and kidney. His condition has been upgraded from critical to stable. Doctors plan to move him to Columbia Presbyterian for further surgery.
Henderson and the 14-year-old girl ran away from the scene, but have since been found. Henderson was arrested and charged with assault. His female companion is being questioned, but hasn't been charged.
Martinez' family, who earlier told reporters that they were concerned about gang involvement, still aren't sure what happened. They say he left the house with a friend to go to the store Saturday night and never came back. According to his sister, he was last seen wearing different clothes than the ones he was wearing when he got to the hospital.
A cousin told the News ""He's a good kid, you know. He does what all the kids do."
