BAKERSFIELD, CA - A 16-year-old girl who police say stabbed a man over the weekend, will not be charged. Bakersfield Police say she did it in self defense trying to protect her mother.
The teen has been held in Juvenile Hall since Sunday, but now police say the attempted murder charge she was booked on will not stick.
Officers say a fight broke out between Manuel Hernandez and his girlfriend at a home on the 7200 block of Three Rivers Drive early Sunday morning. Neighbors say it's in a new housing development in southwest Bakersfield. Police say the 16-year-old was trying to defend her mother from her boyfriend, Manuel Hernandez.
Police say Hernandez was stabbed in the process and brought to a local hospital with serious injuries. But, Bakersfield Police expect him to survive and say they will seek domestic violence and felony possession of a firearm charges against the 35-year-old.
"He has always been a focus of the investigation because he caused this thing. He was the cause of the incident the way it transpired," said Sgt. Joe Grubbs of the Bakersfield Police Department.
Hernandez does have a violent criminal past. Court documents show in 1995 he was convicted of voluntary manslaughter for shooting and killing a man who came to his home. He served six years in prison for that.
Then in 2006, court documents show he got mad at his girlfriend for taking his keys. Court documents show Hernandez hit and threatened her while her 8-year-old daughter watched and called 911.
Bakersfield Police say Hernandez will be arrested as soon as he's released from the hospital.