Man Stabbed to Death Outside Liquor Store

After confronting three men he believed had harassed his niece, a Canoga Park man was stabbed to death Wednesday in a liquor store parking lot, West Valley police detectives said.

The man, Antonio Canez, 35, was pronounced dead at 1 a.m. at Columbia West Hills Medical Center.

Canez, an unemployed laborer, was stabbed numerous times in the torso, police said.

The three men, all Latinos in their 20s, fled the scene in a brown 1983 or 1984 two-door Oldsmobile Cutlass, police said.

The incident began, according to police, when the victim’s niece returned home and reported she had been confronted by three men at a liquor store on Variel Avenue north of Sherman Way and then followed home.

Canez went to the liquor store armed with a knife, which he used to cut the tires of the men’s car, police said. Canez was disarmed and stabbed by the men, police said.