$1M to slay kin
Victim, killer both in wheelchairs at shelter
THE OPERATOR of a private shelter agreed Wednesday to pay $1.2 million to the family of a wheelchair-using resident who was fatally stabbed inside its East Village facility.
Felipe Rivera-Cruz, 51, plunged a knife into Ronal Garcia’s chest several times during the attack about 4:20 a.m. on Dec. 19, 2009, according to surveillance footage.
Rivera-Cruz, also in a wheelchair during the murder, was slapped with a prison sentence of 25 years to life.
In 2010, Garcia’s family sued the shelter operator, Barrier Free Living, arguing the city-contracted nonprofit failed to protect the victim. The operator agreed Wednesday to the settlement just as the nearly monthlong trial was wrapping up.
“I’m sure the family is breathing a sigh of relief,” Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Alexander Hunter told the jury.
Before the fatal encounter, the two men got into a fistfight after Garcia made a comment about Rivera-Cruz’s manhood, authorities said. They knocked each other out of their wheelchairs and onto the floor during the melee before staff broke it up. The men were then separated and cops were called.
Garcia, 24, went to his second- floor room. He called his family and begged them to pick him up from the shelter at 270 E. Second St.
Before family members arrived, Rivera-Cruz zipped past a shelter security guard on the main floor, got into an elevator, and hunted Garcia down at the end of a hallway. Garcia tried to fend off his attacker before he was stabbed to death.
At the trial, Barrier Free Living officials claimed they lost incident reports filled out by staffers during the attack. And they couldn’t find the portion of a video showing Rivera-Cruz ride past the security guard on the main floor.
Garcia’s son Juelz, who was ju just 4 when his father was k killed, testified at trial, saying he missed going to the park and watching TV with his dad. Juelz, now 11, brought some of the jurors to tears.
The shelter’s lawyer Alecia W Walters-Hinds insisted Barrier Free Living did nothing wrong, noting the police were called after the initial fight but refused to arrest either of the men.
“We thought the fight was over,” she said.
The NYPD says neither man wanted to press charges.
The settlement comes as the city struggles to reduce violence at shelters. Mayor de Blasio announced this month that the NYPD will review safety measures at city shelters and retrain security staff at the Homeless Services Department.