NEW YORK – An employee of a New York City deli was stabbed to death by a customer who was enraged over the price of an item, police said.
The altercation began inside an East Harlem deli near East 102nd Street and Second Avenue around 11:30 p.m. Tuesday. Regular customers at the store said the situation got out of hand when a customer got angry because he tried to buy loose 75-cent cigarettes on credit, and the worker refused.
The dispute spread outside the deli, surveillance video shows, where the customer stabbed Ahmed Almulaiki, a 34-year-old deli worker, in the upper body, police said. Almulaiki defended himself with a golf club, while the attacker danced around him before hitting him with the knife at least twice.
Almulaiki stumbled away and was taken to a nearby hospital, where he died.
“It is a very difficult time to say something because it is shocking. I don’t know how I can explain it,” said Mohamed Zokari, a cousin of Almulaiki who said he was a husband and father. He worked at the delicatessen with relatives and sent money to his wife, daughter and parents in Yemen.
The attacker fled east on 102nd Street, police said. They are now offering a reward for information leading to an arrest in the case, as are neighborhood groups and politicians, even men vying to become the next mayor of New York, who want to bring the suspect before Justice.
“This goes back to Eric Garner. That’s why they killed him, for loose cigarettes. The city needs to enforce this, the Department of Consumer Affairs. They used to do it, they don’t anymore,” said the Republican candidate. Curtis Sliwa.
“This shouldn’t have happened. We have to deal with this problem of violence,” said Democratic candidate Eric Adams, who said he was putting up $ 1,000 of his own money as a reward. More came after that announcement, with $ 5,000 on the table for information, in addition to what the police offer.
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