Man stabbed to death in troubled block of E. 14th Street.

IN THE VILLAGE SUN | A man was killed and a woman and a second man were injured in a rundown East Village neighborhood after another man attacked them with a knife, police said.

According to cops, on Sunday, June 23, around 5:45 p.m., officers responded to 911 calls of several people being stabbed just west of the Trader Joe's Market on E. 14th Street, between Avenue A and First Avenue HAS.

Police found three injured people at the scene. A 38-year-old man was stabbed in the neck, a 51-year-old woman was stabbed in the leg and a 32-year-old man was stabbed in the back.

All three were transported by EMS ambulance to Bellevue Hospital. The 38-year-old man, stabbed in the neck, was pronounced dead. The 51-year-old woman, injured in the leg, is in critical condition. The 32-year-old man who was stabbed in the back is listed in stable condition.

Police arrested a 30-year-old man at the scene and also recovered “a cutting instrument”.

According to department protocol, as of Sunday evening, police had not yet released the identity of the deceased pending proper notification to the family.

The crime scene is in Councilwoman Carlina Rivera's district, just outside the district represented by Councilor Keith Powers.

In an article on X, Powers fumed: “The situation on 14th Street is out of control. It's right across the street from my district, where many of my constituents walk every day. It is unacceptable that living conditions on the streets remain unchanged.

“We need every elected official and every agency to work to solve these problems,” he continued. “A dedicated NYPD presence to combat illicit activity, continued enforcement [against] illegal sellers, continued attention to waste cleanup and sanitation and more.

Statement on today's attacks on 14th Street. pic.twitter.com/EFgucCe2WK

– Keith Powers (@KeithPowersNYC) June 24, 2024

This small area of ​​the East Village has drawn repeated complaints in recent years since the pandemic, due to unlicensed sidewalk vending, drug use and alcohol consumption.

In January, the caretaker at Immaculate Conception Church, just west of the block, was violently cut on the side of the neck after telling a man to stop urinating on a car in front of the church and on the church itself.

Improving the corridor a bit, last July a Panda Express restaurant opened on the southwest corner of 14th Street and First Avenue, bringing positive activity to the previously depressed corner. However, today much of the stretch along the west side of First Avenue, from 13th Street to 15th Street, remains sketchy.

In March 2022, Keith Kelly recounted how a homeless vendor saved a man who had overdosed on E 14th Street, between First Avenue and Avenue A, by giving him a dose of Narcan.

Speaking to the Village Sun last summer, Sal Sadik, a former chef who sold an assortment of goods on the sidewalk outside the not-yet-opened Panda Express, said a bad element had spoiled the scene.

“Before, this neighborhood was quiet and pleasant,” he remembers. “But people ruin everything, they drink and fight.

“Sometimes they give me a ticket; sometimes they take your stuff,” he said of the cops. “It depends who it is. If you say you don't have a vending license, a nice cop will say, “Pack your bags.”