Teenager fatally stabbed outside Rochester pizzeria

A fight between two teenagers outside a Rochester pizza chain early Friday ended with one dead and the other with a neck wound, police said.

Jose J. Negrete, 15, of Rochester, was pronounced dead at Mayo Clinic St. Marys Campus after officers found him lying in a Domino's Pizza parking lot with a stab wound to his chest shortly after 12:30 a.m., police said.

Rochester police responded after Domino's employees called about a knife fight breaking out in front of their restaurant on the 4100 block of E. Frontage Road.

Negrete was "not at all" responsive in the parking lot, police said. Officers administered CPR and he was taken to the hospital by 12:45 a.m., where he was pronounced dead.

Shortly after Negrete was transported, a second 15-year-old boy arrived with his mother at Mayo Clinic St. Marys seeking treatment for a stab wound to the neck, police said. The injured teenager, who underwent surgery, is not in critical condition.

Investigators determined the two teens had been involved in the fight, authorities said.

"We have to determine yet whether it was self-defense or something else," said Lt. James Evenson of the Rochester Police Department.

No one has been arrested, and police don't expect any arrests in the "near term" but are treating the investigation as a homicide, Evenson said.

Police recovered knives from the parking lot and are interviewing other teenagers suspected to have witnessed the fight. They said four to six others between the ages of 13 and 16 were present during the fight.

"Clearly somebody did actions that caused this person's death," Evenson said. "Now whether those were criminal actions or not is what we have to figure out."

Negrete's family said he loved art and attended Phoenix Academy, an alternative public school in Rochester. They added that he had had some minor behavioral problems, such as breaking curfew and shoplifting.

"He did have struggles, like every 15-year-old boy," said his aunt, Kendra Kieffer. "But nobody would expect something like this to happen."

Friday, they said, was a blur of phone calls and grief.

"We've been going into his room, looking at his stuff, crying and trying to figure out funeral homes for him," said his aunt, Dana Kieffer-Cobarruvias. "It's just been a nightmare."

Kieffer-Cobarruvias has set up a GoFundMe page to help with funeral costs.

The family also planned to hold a Friday night candlelight vigil in the Domino's parking lot.

"He was the sweetest kid — always," Kieffer-Cobarruvias said. "He didn't deserve to die, especially in that kind of way."

Hannah Covington • 612-673-4751