Authorities say a dispute at a New York Metropolis deli over who was in line first to get a sandwich took a lethal flip and ended within the deadly stabbing of a postal employee and the arrest of a 24-year-old transgender girl.
Police say the stabbing occurred at a deli in Harlem earlier than 2:30 p.m. on Jan. 2.
Officers arrived to search out USPS employee Ray Hodge III with a number of stab wounds to his torso, arms, again, and neck. First responders rushed the 36-year-old to a neighborhood hospital, the place he died.
Authorities have charged 24-year-old Jaia Cruz with Hodge’s homicide.
Witnesses informed native information retailers that the stabbing occurred after Hodge reportedly entered the deli and positioned his order, prompting an objection from Cruz. She allegedly lower the mailman who had simply taken a break to get a sandwich in line.
“He was within the retailer counting his cash to examine how a lot he needed to order. She got here in after him and he or she had baggage most likely from the grocery store. She put her baggage by the espresso machine and he or she got here to order,” an worker informed The New York Submit.
Janet Wealthy, who was on the deli shopping for espresso, overheard the shouting match between Hodge and Cruz.
“It was over a sandwich,” Wealthy informed the New York Day by day Information. “It was, ‘I used to be subsequent. No, I used to be subsequent.’ It was for nothing.”
Wealthy mentioned she and one other buyer tried to cease the struggle, however the confrontation solely escalated.
“I bought in between them — twice,” mentioned Wealthy. There was one other girl with dreadlocks [who] mentioned, ‘Don’t do that, you may have job. Let this go.’”
Hodge reportedly “took off his coat and mentioned, ‘You need to stab me?’” Wealthy mentioned. “I picked up his coat and put it again on. I used to be attempting to stop the struggle.”
Wealthy added that Cruz, who stood nicely over six toes tall, was “foaming on the mouth” and seemed to be excessive on medicine throughout the argument.
“I used to be within the center and he was in entrance of me and he or she got here from behind me and spit in his face,” a deli employee informed the New York Submit.
The dispute got here to a lethal finish when Cruz allegedly pulled out a steak knife and stabbed Hodge a minimum of 3 times, in keeping with witness accounts. Authorities recovered a knife on the scene.
“She began stabbing him, and the following factor you realize, blood was in every single place,” Wealthy mentioned.
A good friend of Cruz who spoke to ABC 7 Eyewitness Information anonymously informed the outlet that the stabbing may be very out of character for Cruz and believes Cruz took drastic measures in self-defense.
“She’s a pleasant younger girl. She shouldn’t be the kind that simply come out on the street an attacking individuals,” the good friend mentioned. “That is only a dangerous neighborhood. What occurred — I don’t know as a result of I used to be not round but. I don’t know, however I do know, if she mentioned it was in self-defense, it was in self-defense.”
However Cruz reportedly has a documented legal historical past involving knife violence.
In line with the New York Submit, she was arrested 5 occasions earlier than her most up-to-date arrest for Hodge’s slaying.
In 2020, she was arrested after she was caught waving an open field cutter at somebody and threatening to “lower” that particular person.
Two weeks after that incident, she robbed a person at knifepoint after she and one other good friend invited the sufferer to “hang around.”
Those that knew Hodge mentioned the information of his demise was stunning.
“It’s scary. The person is on his job, they arrive to my constructing each day, and identical to that, he’s gone,” Uzo Guchisachi, a Harlem resident, mentioned.
A USPS employee who additionally knew the 36-year-old referred to as him a “good younger man.”
Local people activist Dr. Iesha Sekou talked about how Hodge’s mom reacted to her son’s demise.
“A mom by no means, by no means expects to bury her baby,” Sekou informed CBS Information. “She’s nonetheless in a bit of shock. She simply mentioned I didn’t imagine that my son could be useless. And I don’t assume any mom is prepared for this.”
