Violent end on subway
Bx. ex-con had love of family despite life of crime, addiction
A Bronx man with a lengthy rap sheet met a violent end on the subway, leaving his family to reflect on how his life devolved into frequent prison stints.
Alfredo William Alvarez, 45, was on a Manhattan-bound train just after 5 a.m. Friday as it left the Fordham Road station in the Bronx, according to police.
Alvarez got into an argument with three people, which turned physical and then fatal when someone in the group either stabbed or shot him in the chest, cops said.
The train pulled into the 182183rd Sts. station, where the three people who assaulted Alvarez hopped off. Medics called to the scene rushed him to St. Barnabas Hospital, but he could not be saved.
Alvarez was a father and son whose troubled past prevented him from finding employment and stable housing, relatives said.
“He was fighting his demons,” his mother Sandra Vazquez told the Daily News. “He was trying to change his life and sorry to say, this tragedy in the D train, they took my son.”
The man was raised in the Bronx by parents from the Dominican Republic.
“These cowards took my son away from me, my only son,” Vazquez, 63, lamented. “I’m holding on.”
Alvarez had a 21-year-old son and 26-year-old daughter with his ex-wife and high school sweetheart.
“He meant everything to us,” his ex-wife Erica Estremera said through tears. “This is a tragic episode and I can’t believe that this happened in New York City transit. It’s not even safe.”
Alvarez’s family had not seen him in several months as his addiction spiraled out of control, they said.
“My daughter did speak to him and he did tell her, ‘I’m fighting my battle. I’m battling my demons but I’m trying to be a good person,’ ” Estremera, 46, said. “But no matter what, he loved his family. I knew him and I know he did.”
Their children are struggling to come to terms with the death of their father.
“This has devastated my children,” said Estremera. “They can’t bear with this. Just to know that their father is no longer going to be there for them or just see them is just killing them inside.”
Alvarez had 25 prior arrests in the city including for drugs, rape, shoplifting, grand larceny and burglary, police sources said. Records show he served multiple stints in state prison, where his family believes he became addicted to drugs.
“It all started in jail when he was around those people that used to have addictions,” said the man’s nephew, who asked to be identified as Donovan. “And then he would come out they would put him in a shelter and that’s when it was just a cycle. That’s when it began.”
Donovan, 22, believes Alvarez became addicted to Percocet about 10 years ago. Over the course of the last year, he stopped visiting family.
“He wouldn’t allow us to get in contact with him because he always said, he was just ashamed of himself and you know, we always tried to help him. But there’s only so much you can do,” said Donovan.
Alvarez’s mourning father hadn’t seen his son for the six months before his death.
“You can’t notice it in my face, but that’s somebody that I raised ever since he was a baby,” said Alfredo Alvarez, 65. “And somebody just taking him from me, I’m distraught about it.”
“I didn’t hardly see him because every time I see him, I’d talk to him about that. So he didn’t want me to talk to him so he didn’t come here usually,” the dad added.
Police released photos of the people involved in Alvarez’s death. There have been no arrests.
Alvarez’s death marked the second homicide in the city’s subway system in less than two weeks. On Feb. 12, innocent bystander Obed Beltran-Sanchez, 35, was killed and five others injured during a shooting at the Mount Eden Ave. station in the Mount Eden section of the Bronx.