A 28-year-old man is accused of stabbing his young cousin after a family argument that police say began over unauthorized console use.
SUNRISE, Fla. — A Florida man accused of stabbing his 12-year-old cousin during a dispute over a gaming console was arrested on an aggravated battery charge that focuses on the alleged use of a deadly weapon, even though authorities said the child’s injury was not life-threatening.
Andrew Zagazeta, 28, of Weston, was taken into custody early July 31 following the confrontation at an apartment complex in the 12800 block of Vista Isles Drive in Sunrise. Initial reports said he was held on a $20,000 bond. The arrest allegation places the case under Florida’s aggravated battery law, which provides more than one route for such a charge. The statute covers a battery that intentionally or knowingly causes great bodily harm, permanent disability or permanent disfigurement, but it also separately covers a battery committed with a deadly weapon. The second provision is relevant to the police account because investigators allege Zagazeta used a knife against the child.
Florida law classifies aggravated battery under that statute as a second-degree felony. That classification describes the offense prosecutors would have to prove; it does not establish Zagazeta’s guilt. The arrest listing also carried a domestic-violence designation. Florida’s statutory definition of domestic violence includes aggravated battery and other offenses committed between qualifying family or household members, while its definition of family or household member includes people related by blood under specified residential circumstances. The reports reviewed establish that Zagazeta and the child are cousins but do not provide enough detail about their residence history to independently determine the basis for every aspect of the booking classification.
The underlying police narrative begins not with the statute but with a disagreement inside the apartment. Investigators said the child confronted Zagazeta because his adult cousin had been using the boy’s gaming system without permission. Police reports quoted in local coverage describe a heated argument, and the child later told detectives that Zagazeta pushed him. No available report says the console was stolen or damaged, and authorities have not identified a dispute over a particular video game or online activity. The issue, according to the boy’s statement, was that Zagazeta was using the equipment without his permission. Police have not publicly attributed any broader motive to the alleged assault.
The cousins’ great-grandmother was close enough to hear or observe the argument and intervened as tensions rose. She told officers she separated the two relatives but did not see a knife being displayed during the confrontation she witnessed. Her account is significant because it confirms an argument and an intervention while also marking a limit in the eyewitness evidence released publicly. The great-grandmother did not tell police that she saw Zagazeta stab the boy. What allegedly happened after she intervened comes primarily from the child’s later statement and from the evidence officers said they recovered in the apartment.
During his interview with detectives, the 12-year-old acknowledged that he himself had taken a knife from a kitchen storage block while the dispute was underway. He said he returned it after his great-grandmother stepped in. The reports reviewed do not say the child used that knife against Zagazeta or anyone else, and authorities did not announce a criminal allegation against him. Including that fact in the arrest narrative gives a more complete picture of the confrontation and avoids treating the police account as simpler than it was. It may also become relevant if attorneys later dispute the sequence of events or the source of the weapon involved in the injury.
The child said the conflict resumed as he went toward the gaming console to take it back. According to the arrest affidavit described by news outlets, Zagazeta then obtained a knife from behind the television and stabbed the boy in the right hip. The word “immediately” appeared in the affidavit’s account of that sequence, according to Law&Crime, but the larger point is that police allege the stabbing followed closely after the family intervention rather than during the first moments of the argument. Officers later recovered a knife behind the television, according to the reports. No publicly released laboratory findings have been identified tying that knife to the wound, so the recovery should not be described as more conclusive than police have stated.
The great-grandmother became aware that the child had been hurt after the confrontation moved outside. She told police she saw Zagazeta leaving the apartment and followed him. The 12-year-old then approached her and said he had been stabbed in the right hip. Officers responding to the residence found the injury, and emergency personnel took the boy to Broward Health Medical Center. Local 10 News reported that the puncture was approximately 1 centimeter deep. Medical personnel considered the injury non-life-threatening. The child’s identity has not been made public in the reviewed reports, and authorities have not released a detailed later medical update.
Detectives interviewed the boy at the hospital, and that conversation supplied much of the probable-cause chronology made public afterward. The child described the unauthorized console use, the alleged push, the great-grandmother’s intervention, his own brief handling of a kitchen knife and the later stabbing allegation. Zagazeta also spoke with police, according to the arrest report, but the portion containing his statement was redacted in the version obtained by reporters. Without that statement, the available public materials do not show whether he agreed with any part of the child’s chronology, denied stabbing him or offered another explanation for the injury or the knife recovered by officers.
The difference between the severity of an injury and the legal theory of an aggravated battery charge is one reason the statutory context matters in this case. A non-life-threatening wound does not necessarily prevent authorities from alleging aggravated battery when they claim a deadly weapon was used. At the same time, an arrest based on probable cause is not the same as a conviction after evidence has been tested in court. Prosecutors must decide what charge or charges to pursue, and the defense can challenge witness credibility, physical evidence and the state’s reconstruction of the incident. The reviewed reports do not establish that those later steps have produced a final resolution.
Several factual questions also remain outside the public record. Police have not released Zagazeta’s unredacted statement. The reports do not describe video of the incident, an additional eyewitness to the stabbing itself or publicly released forensic testing of the recovered knife. They do not explain why a knife was allegedly behind the television before the stabbing or establish who placed it there. Authorities have also not publicly identified any dispute between the cousins before the argument over the gaming console. Those unknowns should remain separate from what the arrest affidavit alleges rather than being filled with assumptions about motive or family history.
The July 31 arrest and the aggravated battery allegation does not establish a conviction or later final disposition. Zagazeta is presumed innocent unless proven guilty. The 12-year-old was last publicly reported to have suffered a non-life-threatening wound. The case will ultimately turn not on the unusual object at the center of the initial dispute, but on whether prosecutors can prove the elements of the charged offense through admissible evidence and testimony.
Author note: Last updated September 9, 2026.