By late afternoon, the streets around a Los Angeles parade route were no longer filled with floats and music. Police cruisers blocked intersections. Crowds were ordered to leave, and officials would not say exactly how many people were hurt.
What began as an annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebration in the Leimert Park area of South Los Angeles turned into a crime scene in January 2026. Reporting by Fox News, based on statements from the Los Angeles Police Department, describes a man in his forties stabbed near the route and a police officer assaulted in a separate confrontation.[1]
From Celebration To Crime Scene
According to Fox News, Los Angeles police received calls shortly before 2 p.m. about a fight involving several people near the intersection of Stocker Street and Crenshaw Boulevard in South Los Angeles.[1] The area is adjacent to Leimert Park, a central hub for the city’s annual MLK Day parade and festival.
Police said a 40-year-old man was reported stabbed during that altercation. The man was taken to a nearby hospital. As of the time of the Fox report, authorities had not released his name or updated his condition publicly.
After the initial incident, police reported that multiple fights broke out on nearby streets. Officers responded by giving dispersal orders to the crowd and positioning patrol cars to block off sections of the area.
Local station ABC7, as cited by Fox News, reported that a police officer was assaulted near the parade route in Leimert Park. It was not immediately clear whether that assault was directly connected to the stabbing incident. Details about the assault, including whether any weapon was involved, were not provided in the coverage.
What Police Say Happened
Almost every key detail in the public record so far comes through police statements summarized by local media. Fox News attributes its account to the Los Angeles Police Department. At the time of publication, LAPD had not released a detailed public incident summary on its main website, although general crime and incident information is typically posted at lapdonline.org.
Based on that reporting, these points are confirmed by police:
Item 1: Officers were dispatched to Stocker Street and Crenshaw Boulevard in response to a report of a stabbing that followed a fight involving multiple people.[1]
Item 2: A 40-year-old man was transported to a hospital for treatment of stab wounds. His condition was not released.
Item 3: Additional fights occurred on adjacent streets, prompting officers to issue dispersal orders and use patrol cars to control movement in the area.
Item 4: A Los Angeles police officer was assaulted near the parade route in Leimert Park, according to ABC7, as relayed in the Fox report.
Police had not publicly identified any suspect or suspects, had not announced arrests related to the stabbing or the officer assault, and had not presented a possible motive. Descriptions in the coverage refer to “a group of young people” causing a disturbance after the parade, language that comes from a statement by the city’s mayor.
Officials Call For Calm
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass acknowledged the violence in a written statement quoted by Fox News. Bass said, “Unfortunately, after the parade, LAPD responded to a group of young people creating a disturbance and there are reports of a stabbing towards the end of the parade route that remains under investigation.”[1]
She added that her Office of Community Safety was working with LAPD and community violence intervention workers in the area, with the aim of de-escalating tensions and dispersing remaining crowds. The mayor’s office, which outlines its public safety initiatives on its website at mayor.lacity.gov, did not immediately release additional detail about those interventions in the reporting that is currently available.
The language in Bass’s statement highlights two parallel tracks. One involves traditional policing and potential criminal charges. The other relies on community-based efforts to calm the area and prevent further conflict.
What We Still Do Not Know
Publicly available information about the incident remains limited. Key facts are still missing.
Item 1: Victim status. Police have not disclosed the stabbing victim’s condition, the number or location of his wounds, or whether he was targeted or caught up in a broader fight.
Item 2: Officer’s injuries. Authorities have not released any information about the injured officer’s condition, the nature of the assault, or whether that officer required hospitalization.
Item 3: Suspects and arrests. There has been no confirmation of suspects identified, detained, or arrested in connection with either the stabbing or the alleged assault on the officer. There is also no public description of any individuals being sought.
Item 4: Relationship between incidents. It remains unclear whether the stabbing, the later fights on adjacent streets, and the officer assault were part of a single chain of events or largely separate confrontations that occurred near the same parade route.
Item 5: Crowd size and planning. Available reporting does not state how many people were in the area when the fights broke out or what specific crowd control plans were in place for the end of the parade.
Without those details, residents and parade goers are left with a basic outline of what happened but limited ability to compare the police response with existing public safety plans for large civic events.
Public Record And Next Steps
As of the Fox News report, LAPD had acknowledged the stabbing and the alleged assault on an officer, but had not held a public briefing specific to this incident. The department typically routes media inquiries through its Media Relations Division, listed at lapdonline.org, where more detailed incident reports sometimes appear after initial emergency responses.
Local television outlet ABC7, mentioned in the Fox report, routinely publishes updates about significant crime and public safety incidents in Los Angeles on abc7.com. No independent written account from that station was included in the material available here, so details about the officer assault are drawn only from the way Fox summarized ABC7’s reporting.
For now, several essential questions remain open. Authorities have not said who, if anyone, they believe is responsible for the stabbing, when more information about the officer’s condition will be released, or whether the city will publish a more detailed after-action review of how a planned day of celebration ended with a man in the hospital and an officer hurt.
