Fatal ‘art’ fight
Man dead after brawl outside B’klyn gallery
A BROOKLYN bike messenger was found dead with a cracked skull in a pal’s apartment over the weekend after getting into a fight at a Bushwick art gallery, police sources said.
The body of Curtis Valentine, 32, was found in the place he was crashing on Troutman Ave. near Irving Ave. in Bushwick. His roommate made an emergency call around 10 p.m. Sunday, police said.
An autopsy revealed he died of a cracked skull, according to a source.
Detectives backtracked Valentine’s movements and learned he had visited the Head Too Heavy Gallery Saturday evening and got into a scuffle with someone there.
“He was a nice guy — just a little rowdy when he gets drunk, but he was the sweetest guy. I’m devastated. My wife and I are devastated,” Valentine’s roommate, Andy Svedja, 37, told the Daily News.
Valentine lived with the couple the last three months but was planning to move to his own place in Crown Heights soon, Svedja said.
He said he wasn’t with Valentine at the gallery and returned home to find his friend sprawled out on the floor, apparently sleeping.
“He was pretty much passed out. He passes out pretty hard,” Svedja said.
The roomie said he had no idea Valentine suffered a head injury, so he went to bed thinking everything was OK. “I wake up, he’s still passed out. It was like 1:30 in the afternoon on Sunday, and I had to go and work and do other things. Then I came back around 10 o’clock, and he was gone. I had to call the police,” he recalled. “I’m kicking myself because maybe there was a slight possibility that he was in a coma, and I could’ve done something about it,” Svedja said. “I don’t ever want anybody to do what I had to do,” he said after being called upon to identify Valentine’s body. Svedja said Valentine worked a deliveryman for several businesses, including a liquor store in Williamsburg and Arepera Guacuco, a Venezuelan restaurant.
“He was well-known in the community. I’m traumatized, my wife’s traumatized. He was our friend, our roommate. Everybody knew him. I had no idea that he got into a fight,” he said.
Valentine’s mother, who lives in Florida, said he grew up in Virginia and was an aspiring professional skateboarder before moving to New York from Tampa in 2008.
“He was such a free spirit and such an independent leader. He was funny,” said Charmaine Castillo, 61. “When he moved to New York City, his personality just exploded. He was just loving life.”
Cops said Thursday they were trying to identify the person or people involved in the gallery confrontation and determine how Valentine suffered the injury that caused his death.