The child suffered a non-life-threatening hip wound after confronting his adult cousin about using his gaming system without permission, police said.
SUNRISE, Fla. — In Florida, a 12-year-old boy was treated for a non-life-threatening wound after police said an argument over his gaming console escalated into an alleged stabbing by his 28-year-old cousin, despite a great-grandmother’s attempt to stop the confrontation inside a Sunrise apartment.
The child’s condition provides the clearest starting point for an incident that authorities say could have ended far more seriously. Emergency personnel took him to Broward Health Medical Center after the July 30 encounter, and Local 10 News reported that his right-hip wound measured about 1 centimeter deep. Authorities said the injury was not life-threatening. The boy’s name has not been publicly released in the reports reviewed. His adult cousin, Andrew Zagazeta of Weston, was arrested early the next morning and accused of aggravated battery with a deadly weapon. The charge remains an allegation, and the police report on which much of the public account is based has not been tested at trial.
The boy did not initially provide his fullest account at the apartment. Detectives later interviewed him at the hospital, where he described how a disagreement over control of the gaming system had unfolded. According to police, he said Zagazeta had been using the console without his permission. The child confronted him, the exchange became heated and Zagazeta pushed him, the boy told investigators. The reports do not identify a particular game, describe damage to the console or suggest that online play itself was responsible for the confrontation. What police have identified as the trigger was much simpler: a child objected to an adult relative using his property without permission.
The child’s account also included a fact that complicates the sequence. He acknowledged taking a knife from a storage block in the kitchen after the argument escalated. According to investigators, the boy said he returned it when his great-grandmother stepped between the cousins. No reviewed report says the child stabbed, cut or threatened Zagazeta with that knife, and police did not announce charges against the minor. Still, the detail is part of the evidence investigators recorded and could be relevant to any later examination of how the argument developed. It also means the publicly known confrontation involved more than a single unexplained appearance of a weapon.
The great-grandmother’s account overlaps with only part of the boy’s description. She told responding officers that the relatives had been arguing over the gaming console and that she intervened to separate them. She said she did not see either person displaying a knife at the time. That makes her an important witness to the dispute but, based on the released account, not to the stabbing itself. The absence of an adult eyewitness to the alleged knife strike is one reason the boy’s later hospital statement and the physical evidence reported by officers became central to the probable-cause narrative.
According to the child, the confrontation did not end when his great-grandmother separated the two. He said he began walking toward his gaming system to retrieve it. Police allege that Zagazeta then obtained a knife from behind the television and stabbed the boy once in the right hip area. Officers later reported recovering a knife behind the television. The reports reviewed do not say why a knife was there, who had put it there or whether laboratory testing linked it conclusively to the injury. Those are important boundaries around the evidence: police reported a recovery consistent with the location described by the child, but the available public material does not disclose a completed forensic analysis.
The injury became known to the great-grandmother moments later. She told police she saw Zagazeta leaving the apartment and followed him outside. The boy approached her and said he had been stabbed, according to the arrest report. Officers called to the Vista Isles Drive apartment complex then encountered the injured child. From there, the investigation effectively split between the scene and the hospital: police had a physical location where a knife was later recovered and a young patient who could give detectives an account of what he said happened. The reports do not identify another witness who claimed to have seen the knife enter the child’s hip.
Zagazeta also spoke with law enforcement, but the public version of his statement is not available. Law&Crime reported that his statement in the affidavit was redacted. That leaves an important asymmetry in the publicly available record. Readers can see the substance of the child’s account and the great-grandmother’s description of the argument, but not Zagazeta’s explanation. It would therefore be unsupported to say that he confessed, denied the allegation, claimed self-defense or gave any other specific version of events. None of those possibilities can be substituted for the missing statement. His position must remain unknown unless it appears in a later verified filing or public proceeding.
Police arrested Zagazeta early July 31. Initial reporting said he was booked into the Broward County jail system and held on a $20,000 bond. Jail information described the allegation as aggravated battery with a deadly weapon and included a domestic-violence designation. Florida law defines aggravated battery to include a battery in which a deadly weapon is used, as well as cases involving intentionally or knowingly inflicted great bodily harm, permanent disability or permanent disfigurement. The offense under that statute is a second-degree felony. Those legal provisions explain the accusation but do not resolve whether prosecutors can prove that Zagazeta committed it.
The domestic-violence label on the booking information also should not be read more broadly than the available facts allow. Florida law includes certain offenses between family or household members within its domestic-violence framework and defines qualifying relationships according to both family connection and specified residential circumstances. The reports establish that the accused and the child are cousins, but they do not fully describe whether they lived together or had done so in the past. The booking classification can be accurately reported as part of the arrest record without assuming facts about the family’s living arrangements that have not been released.
Much about the episode remains narrowly documented. Authorities have not publicly identified the child. They have not released a later medical assessment beyond the initial finding that his injury was non-life-threatening. The reports reviewed contain no description of surveillance video capturing the alleged stabbing, no public forensic results from the recovered knife and no unredacted account from Zagazeta. They also do not establish a prior history of violence between the cousins. The gaming-console dispute is the only reason for the argument identified by police, and no unsupported psychological explanation or broader motive can be attached to it.
What is known is that a routine disagreement inside a family residence was followed by an injured child, a police investigation and a felony arrest. What remains to be established is criminal responsibility under the rules of the court system. The latest reviewed reporting does not show a final disposition of Zagazeta’s case. He is presumed innocent unless proven guilty, while the 12-year-old was last reported to be recovering from an injury doctors did not consider life-threatening. Any later prosecution will have to move beyond the arrest narrative and establish the facts through evidence that can be challenged in court.
Author note: Last updated September 9, 2026.