USC student arrested after fatally stabbing carjacking suspect

JUNE 18, 2024 8:44 p.m.

David Rendon and Sasha Ryu, Daily Trojan Staff

Friends and family of Ivan Gallegos created a GoFundMe titled “Justice for Ivan” Tuesday evening to help raise the money needed to pay his $2 million bail.

Ivan “found himself in a precarious situation due to the lack of security measures around his campus,” Violet Gallegos, Ivan Gallegos' mother, wrote on the fundraiser's webpage.

“After hearing a car alarm, Ivan and two friends went to investigate and discovered a man in his friend’s car. When they approached and asked the man to leave, he claimed the car as his and stated he had a gun,” the webpage reads. “Feeling their lives were in danger, Ivan and his friends continued to demand that the intruder leave the vehicle and the premises.”

Shortly after Gallegos and his friends confronted the man in the vehicle, the man “began to reach for his waist” and Gallegos fatally stabbed him “in self-defense,” according to the webpage.

In an interview with the Los Angeles MagazineGallegos' friends said they called police to report the car break-in before the altercation.

The two friends, who spoke to Review speaking on condition of anonymity, “would not say where [Gallegos’s] where the knife came from or how many times Gallegos stabbed the man.

At the time of publication, GoFundMe had raised $3,140.

Correction: A previous version of this article incorrectly attributed the statement that Ivan Gallegos' friends “called the police before the altercation began… [but] shortly after, the man was dead,” Gallegos’ friends said in an interview with Los Angeles Magazine. This article was updated on June 18 at 10:16 p.m. to reflect that the statement is a quote from a Los Angeles Magazine article titled “‘He Feared For His Life’ – Friends Say USC Student Stabbed Man In Self-Defense.” ” THE Daily Trojan regrets this error.