Ma mourns bar stab vic
Pa. man was dad & had child on way, played HS football in B’klyn
A man stabbed to death outside a dicey Brooklyn bar was a devoted dad expecting his fourth child, his heartbroken mother says.
Daryl Dawkins, 37, was found knifed in the chest outside Catch 22 on Third Ave. near 73rd St. in Bay Ridge at around 2:50 a.m., according to police.
“Daryl is a sweetheart. He’s my first son,” the victim’s mom, Clay Ann Dawkins, 58, told the Daily News by phone Monday. “We have such a close bond, me and him talk about anything and everything.
“I know he was prob crying out for me with his last breath,” she said as she began to weep.
Dawkins lived in Tobyhanna, Pa., but grew up in Brooklyn, where he played football for Fort Hamilton High School. He traveled back and forth from Pennsylvania and Bay Ridge to be with his girlfriend, who is pregnant, said his mother.
Dawkins is also survived by a son, 9, and two daughters, 5 and 3.
Clay Ann Dawkins said her son had had legal troubles in the past but he made an effort to turn his life around when he became a father, working for Fed Ex and soaking up information on investing.
“He said, ‘Mom, I have to make changes in my life now that I’m a father.’ ” she said. “He was reading books and going to seminars on how to apply to certain loans.”
“For them to just take his life, and he didn’t even get a chance to prove himself,” Clay Ann Dawkins said before tearing up.
On Sunday, a neighbor who lives near Catch 22 said she hears shouting “all the time” coming from the establishment.
“This has been getting way out of hand, this bar,” said the woman, who asked to be identified only as Sue. “A lot of violence, a lot of trouble.”
The woman has witnessed numerous fights stemming from the bar throughout the years, including one in which a group of female attackers jumped a woman and repeatedly kicked her in the head and hit her with their high-heeled shoes.
“This bar is the No. 1 bar they have to close,” said Sue, who has lived in the neighborhood for 20 years. “They close it down, they change the name all the time, [and] they open it again.”
The disgruntled neighbor heard screaming coming from the bar the night of the slaying but didn’t call 911 as the commotion has become commonplace on the block.
The victim’s mother remembered her son being especially tender with his baby sister when he was young.
“I got pregnant with him when I was 20 and I had him when I was 21,” said Clay Ann Dawkins. “We’ve been through a lot together; it was always me and Daryl. He was so happy when he had a little sister. While I’m cooking he would sit there and rock her.
“He has a good heart, he has a big heart,” the grieving mom added. “I don’t know how I’m going to manage without him. He’s my backbone, he’s everything to me.”
In 2022, there was a fatal stabbing at a bar and restaurant a block away from the Catch 22. Anthony D’Onofrio, 22, was stabbed outside Catrina’s Mexican Grill on Third Ave. near 74th St. on Jan. 29 during a melee involving 10 people in a snowstorm.
Catrina’s closed the following year.