A Brooklyn bodega worker who got into a fatal tussle with a “neighborhood nuisance” claimed he and another employee were only defending themselves – and the local troublemaker had threatened him before the melee.
Royal Deli & Grill worker Kelvin Melo told the Daily News that Gerry Hill barged into the business and came in ready for a fight Monday night when he slugged the clerk in the face, leading the two to start struggling on the floor.
“I grabbed him and he fell on top of me and we were fighting,” he recalled.
“When I got up, I saw all the blood and thought I was bleeding. I went to the bathroom to clean up and I realized it was his blood.”
During the struggle, another clerk jumped in to help Melo and whacked Hill on the head with a baton, police and law enforcement sources said. The 59-year-old Bushwick local ultimately left the store to go home, but was rushed to the hospital where he died.
Melo said he didn’t see fellow clerk, Mukel Shaibi, hit Hill with a baton because he was at the bottom of the struggle.
“After the fight Shaibi showed me the stick he was hitting him with,” Melo reportedly said. “It was broken. It was a stick we used to break ice with.”
While the two deli workers have been questioned by police, they have not been charged.
Melo said when Hill first entered the business, he was screaming so loud the worker couldn’t hear orders.
“I went around the counter and told him to leave,” he said. “He said, ‘I want to fight you. I’m going to f–ing kill you. Any one of you come outside and fight.’”
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