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A 29-year-old muralist who worked hard to beautify and build up his Brooklyn community was stabbed dead during a senseless clash with a stranger, officials said Tuesday.
Brooklyn resident Massiah Berkley was visiting his cousin in Far Rockaway, Queens, when 51-year-old James Williams picked a fight with him on Beach 20th St. near Mott Ave. about 3:55 p.m. Monday, authorities said.
“My son was at the park,” Berkley’s heartbroken mother Kim Berkley told the Daily News through sobs Tuesday as she lay on her her bed in the dark at the Brownsville home she shared with her son, overcome with grief. “He had a confrontation. … They started fighting.”
“My son hit him with a bottle. He hit my son with a bottle,” she added. “My son turned and walked away, thought everything was finished with the fight. Then [Williams] pulled out a knife and stabbed my son in his heart.”
Massiah made the trek to Far Rockaway to help his cousin care for her ailing mom, Kim Berkley said. The cousin was not present for the fight.
“Massiah was a sweetheart. He helped everybody. That’s whyy he was in Far Rockaway,y so he could help [his cousin] take care of her mother, because her mother was in a nursing home,” Berkley said. “That’s what he do, he help everybody. But nobody was there to help him.”
“My son is lying somewhere in a f—-ing morgue right now with a tag on his toe, cold,” she added as tears streamed down her face. “For what? For what?”
Though initial reports suggested Berkley and Williams were strangers, the park’s regulars said they knew each other. Berkley frequented the park often, they said.
And one witness to the assault contradicted the mothers’ version of events.
Williams was sitting in the Beach 20th St. Plaza park when Berkley stormed up to him and yelled, “Who do you think you’re f—-ing with?” said
Maxwell Cohen, 49, a maintenance and security worker picking up his wife when the bloodshed happened.
Berkley then rained punches on Williams’ head, Cohen alleged.
“James’ head hit the ground so hard he was gushing blood. He got up and didn’t know where he was. He was halfdizzy. He grabbed the knife from another guy,” Cohen added.
“[Berkley] was behind him, going to hit him again, but [Williams] turned and stabbed him,” Cohen alleged. “The first time, he ran into the knife. The second time, [Williams] stabbed him in his chest.”
Berkley staggered and fell down, while Williams managed to get as far as the nearby subway tracks before collapsing, Cohen said.
Cops found Berkley lying