A 22-year-old man was sentenced Tuesday, Oct. 5, to 12 years in state prison for stabbing to death another man during a fight aboard a Los Angeles Metro light-rail train in Long Beach four years ago, authorities said.
Akili Collins, who was 18 at the time of the stabbing and living in Long Beach, pleaded no contest to voluntary manslaughter in September, court records show. He had been charged with murder in the death of Luis Fernando Polita, 25, of Los Angeles.
Polita was riding the southbound Metro A (Blue) Line train on April 12, 2023, when Collins and two other men boarded the train after it had crossed into Long Beach, police said.
They confronted Polita and began fighting with him, police said. At one point, one of the men pulled a knife and stabbed Polita multiple times.
The three men ran away when the train stopped at the downtown Long Beach station in the 100 block of East First Street.
Polita was found inside the train suffering from stab wounds. He died at a hospital.
Collins and another man, Melake Daniel, were arrested two days after the attack about a mile east of where it occurred, police said. A third man, Gael Cruz-Gonzalez, of Compton, was arrested two months later at Los Angeles International Airport as he attempted to board a plane to Mexico.
Daniel pleaded no contest to accessory after the fact and received two years of probation. Cruz-Gonzalez pleaded no contest to assault with a deadly weapon and received three years in state prison.
What sparked the fight was uclear, though police have said it originated on the train.