Man dies from 1998 fight; murder charge debated

AN AFTER-SCHOOL brawl in the Bronx nearly 20 years ago could result in murder charges after one of the combatants died in his sleep.

Omar Grierson and his buddies got into a fight with 15 other classmates on East Fordham Road near Marion Ave. — just two blocks from Fordham University. Grierson, then 17, was bopped in the head with a baseball bat during the clash on Oct. 1, 1998. He was hospitalized for several days.

Police arrested 16-year-old Jansey Zeron for allegedly wielding the bat during the assault.

Grierson was never the same after the assault, his aunt Janice Edmond told the Daily News.

“He suffered from these seizures,” Edmond, 56, said. “He was in a lot of pain.”

Grierson, a father of three, died in his sleep after suffering one of the seizures on Nov. 3, 2016, officials said.

Edmond found her nephew dead.

“I went in the back and I cried,” she said, recalling the tragic moment. “I asked God to find the person (responsible) even though it’s been that long.” “It’s just ridiculous,” she said. An autopsy confirmed the initial reports: Grierson died from asphyxia due to a “traumatic seizure disorder from a blunt force head injury,” officials said.

On Feb. 24, the city’s medical examiner declared his death a homicide.

Police said the Bronx district attorney will determine if Zeron will face homicide charges.

Zeron, now 35, was arrested a handful of times following the attack on Grierson, mostly for stealing parts from cars. A police source said he was deported around 2005. The source didn’t know what country Grierson is from. Details on the initial assault prosecution weren’t immediately available. “They said somebody had jumped him after school and hit him in his head with a baseball bat,” Edmond told The News. “I don’t know why. . . maybe it was a schoolyard fight, maybe it was a gang.” The seizures ruined Grierson’s life, his aunt said. When his fiancée died of cancer in 2011, he was left caring for their three sons — but struggled because of the seizures. His mother had to take custody of the kids, Edmond said.

The seizures even cost him his job, she said.

“He put cabinets up in new houses and apartments,” Edmond said. “In September they sent him home because he told me that he had another attack.”

She wants his attacker behind bars.

“They need to pay a price for it. . . they have to,” she said. “I forgive them in my heart. But my grand nephews. . . they’re the ones who now don’t have a father or a mother.”