Last night in Long Beach, a surge of police activity centered around two separate incidents—a stabbing and an inexplicably wayward bullet. According to a news release from the Long Beach Police Department, officers were dispatched to the scene of a stabbing on the 6000 Block of Cherry Avenue at about 2:00 a.m. The victim, identified only as a male adult, suffered a non-life-threatening wound to the upper body. Following the altercation, Long Beach Fire Department personnel provided transport for the man, now in stable condition, to a local hospital.
The suspect, a Long Beach resident named Melissa Mendoza, 42, did not flee the occurrence but remained at the scene. Mendoza is now facing charges including "assault with a deadly weapon and an inflicting corporal injury to a spouse/cohabitant," with bail set at $50,000. The dispute between the victim and the perpetrator, though its nature remains unelucidated, escalated to a point where the suspect reportedly stabbed the victim.
Before the city could rest, a second crime scene demanded police presence, this one on the 3600 Block of Thornlake Avenue. At 8:48 p.m., a call led officers to a male adult victim, struck by a bullet that traveled unexpectedly through his ceiling, hitting him while he lay in his bed. The injury, described as minor and non-critical, is evidence of violence—random or targeted—that pierced the haven of a man’s home.
Motives and circumstances behind the gunshot remain as yet opaque, but the LBPD continues to investigate the strange trajectory of a bullet that has made its mark in the most private of spaces—the bedroom of the unsuspecting. With both events, the Long Beach community grapples with the stark reality of crime that denies the sanctity of personal safety, whether in the heated throes of personal conflict or within the randomness of a stray bullet's flight. The investigation is ongoing.
