BX. MAN ‘JUST LOVED LIFE’
Stabbed to death while getting sandwich at local deli day after birthday
A Bronx man stepping out to his local deli the day after his 50th birthday was stabbed to death after a fight broke out — just two hours before another man was knifed to death less than a mile away.
Shawn Elliott was stabbed in the torso inside the Firehouse Deli on Third Ave. near 143rd St. in Mott Haven around 9:10 p.m. Saturday, according to police.
“He loved family. He just loved life,” said his longtime roommate Tisuak Long, 48, who became friends with Elliott when they were children. “He loved very hard. He was funny. We used to joke a lot of jokes, like all the time.”
Medics rushed Elliott from the deli, a block from his home in the Mott Haven
Houses, to Lincoln Hospital, but he couldn’t be saved.
A 31-year-old man was also stabbed in the torso during the deli brawl. He was taken to the same hospital in stable condition.
Cops took a 38-year-old man into custody at the scene, police said. Charges against him were pending.
Long said Elliott struggled with a harrowing drug addiction, but was known and loved by everyone in the neighborhood and by his family.
“He’s a funny dude, very loving, very caring, good with children and family,” said Long, who also struggles with addiction. “But being on the drug thing, he did some things that wasn’t right. We all do that when we smoke crack.”
Long lost her keys and was trying to get into her apartment Saturday night when she was with Elliott in the courtyard. He said he was going to grab a deli sandwich and would be right back to let her in. He never returned.
“I was waiting for him to come upstairs because I don’t have my key. And I’m like, ’What the hell is taking so long?’ ” she said.
Long was planning a birthday party for Elliott, whose 50th birthday was Friday.
Despite struggling in life, Elliott cared for his community, often carrying grocery bags for the elderly and trying to make people laugh.
“He knew how to cook,” Long said. “He knew how to take care of a house.”
Long believes Elliott could have made enemies over his lifetime of drug use, but thinks the stabbing was meant for someone he was with.
“He had a heart that was just smothered by the numbness of drugs. So it seemed like he just didn’t care to people,” she said. “He had a heart and a soul. He didn’t deserve this and this is his neighborhood where we grew up.”
After the stabbing, neighbors set up candles outside his building as a memorial to him. Even the NYCHA maintenance worker lit a candle to show respect.
About two hours after Elliott was killed and less than a mile from where he was stabbed, a 40-year-old man was fatally stabbed, cops said.
The victim was knifed in the back, left arm and right thigh near E. 156th St. and Brook Ave. in Melrose about 11:15 p.m., police said.
Medics rushed the victim to Lincoln Hospital, where he died, cops said. His name was not immediately released.
There were no arrests in the second incident.