Shirtless man pumping gas in Brooklyn stabbed to death by offended Muslim stranger: witness
A shirtless man whose friend was dancing exuberantly as they pumped gas at a Brooklyn Mobil station was stabbed to death by a stranger who said the men’s antics were offensive to the killer’s Muslim faith, a witness told the Daily News.
The NYPD is investigating the caught-on-video killing as a possible hate crime.
The mayhem started when the victim pulled up the the Mobil gas station on Coney Island Ave. near Avenue P in Midwood about 11:15 p.m. Saturday, cops said. He and his four friends, all shirtless in swim trunks on one of the hottest days of the year, got out of their white sedan to pump gas.
A friend of the victim in small tight trunks a witness described as “underwear” began dancing.
That’s when a group of men exiting the Mobil station started harassing the 28-year-old victim, clad in pink swim trunks, and his pals, according to Summy Ullah, 32, who witnessed the argument and slaying.
“They were saying, ‘Oh, we’re Muslim, so don’t do this in front of me,’” said Ullah. “From that I think it looks like a hate crime.”
“Nothing else was going on. They were only dancing,” he added. “This guy was dancing in underwear and the suspect was like ‘Why are you dancing in your underwear?’”
Ullah says he believes the stabber was motivated by homophobia. “Obviously, they are gay and if they are dancing that’s the problem they had,” he said.
One member of the victim’s group walked up to the men, followed by three others, and they exchanged heated words, video obtained by the Daily News shows.
“You like girls, you look like you’re into girls, but we are not into girls,” Ullah said the victim’s group told the men harassing them. “We have our own life. We can do whatever we want, you know. We’re dancing, that’s our life.”
Ullah said he convinced the two groups to calm down and told everyone to step away — but one of the men harassing the victim’s group continued to use his cellphone to record the shirtless men as he cursed them as they returned to their car.
That sparked the victim’s group to return to the front of the store to argue some more with the man recording them. Ullah again urged the men to cool and the man recording the victim walked off through the parking lot. But the victim chased after him and was stabbed by the man who had been recording, according to Ullah.
The video shows the stabbing happened in a split second, with the shocked victim still on his feet as a crowd gathered around him.
Medics rushed the victim, stabbed in the torso, to Maimonides Medical Center but he couldn’t be saved. His name was not immediately released.
The killer ran off on Coney Island Ave. and has not been caught. Ullah believes the suspect and his friends frequent a smoke shop down the block. Cops were inside the smoke shop investigating hours after the killing but a man in the smoke shop told a Daily News reporter the store had no connection to the killing.
