Climate Change, LGBT Activist Arrested In Deadly Stabbing Near UC Berkeley

BERKELEY (CBSLA.com) — A San Fernando Valley man and UC Berkeley activist suspected in a fatal stabbing near the campus has been arrested, according to police.

Pablo Gomez Jr. 24, of North Hollywood, was arrested on Jan. 7 after investigators in Berkeley named him as a suspect in a stabbing that occurred the previous day and the subsequent discovery of a woman's body, Berkeley police said.

Gomez was sought by police after officers in Berkeley responded to the 2600 block of Ridge Road and found a woman who was the victim of an apparent stabbing, police said. Upon arriving at the scene, officers found the victim seriously wounded and provided medical attention until paramedics transported her to a local hospital, where she was treated in stable condition.

Investigators were later lead to a home on Ashby Avenue, where the body of a second victim was discovered, according to police.

Officers with the Burbank Police Department notified Berkeley police the following day that Gomez was in custody, according to police.

Gomez - who attended Van Nuys High School - was a vocal advocate for LGBT issues at Berkeley, and served as a senior fellow at the Alliance for Climate Education, a climate change activist group, according to his Facebook page.

The gender-neutral activist studied what he described on his Facebook page as "Chicanx/Latinx Studies" at Berkeley, with friends telling local news outlet Berkeleyside that Gomez preferred to use "x" to avoid gender identification, and that "Gomez Jr. uses the pronoun 'they'."

Several controversial posts on Gomez's Twitter page featured criticism of officer-involved shootings of African Americans and made references to "white" people, including one post that described the U.S. as a "violent white supremacist empire whose only fate is annihilation".

A video posted on YouTube in September showed someone who appeared to be Gomez attempting to grab a life-size cardboard cut-out of President-elect Donald Trump during an anti-Trump protest at an event hosted by the Berkeley College Republicans group.

Some supporters on Gomez's Facebook page claimed he suffered from mental health issues.

Police in Berkeley plan to extradite Gomez following the arrest, according to reports.