Pals: Deli stab vic a good guy

A HARLEM MAN STABBED to death during a bloody confrontation with a deli clerk wasn’t the type to spark a fight, friends of the victim said Saturday.

Pals of victim Ramone Colon disputed accounts that the 46-year-old homeless man was a serial shoplifter at the A&S Candy Grocery on W. 145th St. near Lenox Ave., where cops say he swung a knife at worker Ahmed Hafeed as they quarreled about 9 a.m. Friday.

“He would never do stuff like that,” said an acquaintance who would only identify himself as Jonathan.

But Colon was on disability and had schizophrenia, which caused him to act erratically, friends said.

“Sometimes he’d talk crazy things but when you really got to know him, he’s a nice person,” Jonathan said.

Surveillance video shows Hafeed, 22, jumping back from Colon, who took a swipe at him with a knife, before grabbing his own knife and charging after the older man and stabbing him repeatedly in the midsection.

As the clash spilled out into the street, Colon broke free and ran off, the knife still sticking out of his gut. Horrified witnesses said he ran into a nearby Dunkin’ Donuts, yanked the knife out of his stomach and asked someone to call 911. He died at Harlem Hospital.

Colon had been arrested 28 times, mostly for assault, police sources said.

Hafeed was arraigned Saturday night on second-degree murder charges. His lawyer, Micah Kwasnik, said Hafeed, who appeared nervous in court, was terrified by the prospect of going to jail. “It is terrible that somebody died from this fight,” Kwasnik said.

But Manhattan Judge Phyllis Chu was unmoved, ordering Hafeed held without bail.

Some 20 relatives and supporters of Hafeed filled the courtroom, including his father who described Colon as a menace.

“My son told me, ‘I’m uncomfortable because this guy was harassing me,’” said the dad, Abdul Hafeed, 48.

Colon’s brother, Charles Colon, who owns a nearby pawn shop, was too griefstricken Saturday to talk about his sibling’s death.

“I just found out,” he said.