A man was stabbed to death during a fight over beer outside a Queens bodega early Tuesday — and a worker at the store was taken into police custody, cops and law enforcement sources said.
The unidentified victim was knifed in the chest in front of the Mini Mart on Queens Boulevard near 65th Road in Rego Park at around around 12:30 a.m. when a feud erupted over the alcoholic beverage that hadn’t been paid for, cops and sources said.
The gravely wounded man stumbled down the block, where Irene Martinez-Schober, 40, saw the man – who was “bleeding profusely” – clutching the column of an apartment building before falling to the ground.
Martinez-Schrober said she called 911, and tried to help the mortally injured man – who was conscious at first but ultimately bled out from a gash that appeared about two inches long, she said through tears.
“He fell to the side and just before he fell to the side I put my hand on his tummy to see … It was on the center of his chest,” Martinez-Schober said. “When the stretcher came, you saw it. It was like you saw his heart.
“He couldn’t talk,” she recalled. “He couldn’t speak.”
Martinez-Schober put her hand to the ailing man’s pulse, she “felt it go. Beep, beep, beep, beep,” she said, her voice breaking.
“I tried to help,” she said. “I put my hand on there and seeing if I can apply pressure. It was a kill shot. It was a kill shot.”
The victim was taken to the Elmhurst Hospital Center, where he was pronounced dead, police said.
“Stupid,” Martinez-Schober said about the victim apparently losing his life over a beer. “I would have bought him a beer. Over beer, c’mon.”
The deadly stabbing stemmed from a spat over the alcoholic beverage, sources said – but they did not immediately have more details on how the feud unfolded.
The store employee was taken into custody but was not immediately charged.
“This is tragic, this is what we were trying to avoid, someone losing their life,” Fernando Mateo, spokesman for the United Bodegas of America, said of the violence in a statement.
“We ask the public and the media not to jump to conclusions until NYPD detectives have pieced the puzzle,” he continued. “We are hoping NYPD video tapes will tell the real story of what happened.”
“UBA believes DA Melinda Katz will be fair after reviewing the evidence and seeing the video tapes,” the spokesman added, noting that his organization will hold a press conference “once we have the full story” and decline to comment further until then.
