A 14-year-old boy was fatally stabbed with a pair of scissors on the campus of a Southern California middle school Friday afternoon, LAUSD officials said.

An attacker stabbed the boy at 3:08 p.m. in front of David Wark Griffith Middle School in East Los Angeles and ran away, said Monica Carazo of LAUSD.

The district first said the victim was 15 years old, but LA sheriff's deputies later said he was 14.

"He's really quiet, he doesn't really like to talk to anybody," the boy's girlfriend told NBC4. "The only one he tells all his problems to is my brother."

The victim was not a student at the school where he was stabbed, but he was a student at nearby Garfield High School, district officials said. The district could not immediately confirm whether the attacker was a student of the school.

The attacker approached the teen and asked him where he was from before stabbing him in the torso, officials said.

The boy died at the hospital, said LA County Sheriff's Sgt. John Sagardia.

Aerial video showed nearly a dozen patrol cars outside the school, where caution tape lined the front steps. Students were held inside the middle school for several hours until police said it was safe to leave.

LASD confirmed in a statement an investigation was underway in the fatal stabbing. Deputies say several witnesses saw the attack since it happened just after school let out.

Additional details were not immediately clear.

Robert Kovacik contributed to this report.