CHARGED IN SHRIMP SLAY
Wounded kin of slain man faces rob rap as worker gets break
The wounded brother of a man stabbed to death in a wild Harlem seafood market showdown has been criminally charged for his role in the mayhem sparked by an order of shrimp.
Bobby Burrell — still hospitalized with a collapsed lung suffered in the brawl in which a store worker is accused of pulling a knife and fatally stabbing his brother Malik — was charged with robbery, burglary and assault for his role in the Tuesday night melee inside the Express Fish Market.
“My son is sitting there with tubes in him, and he got handcuffs on him and y’all arrested him?” the brothers’ father Robert Burrell questioned at a vigil held for Malik Thursday night. “Is we serious? Where is equality of the law?”
Malik Burrell was killed on the eve of his 25th birthday. Store workers claim his brother Bobby tried to leave the store without paying for shrimp during a quarrel before the fatal stabbing, police said.
The Burrell brothers returned to the business about four minutes after the fistfight between Bobby and a store worker, prosecutors said.
In just 35 seconds, the duo walked behind the counter and confronted the man Bobby had fought, and Malik repeatedly punched him in the face, prosecutors said at a Thursday evening arraignment in Manhattan Criminal Court.
Store worker Junior Aquino Hernandez tried to separate the two, but when he was unsuccessful he grabbed a knife, they added. Video obtained by cops showed him stabbing both brothers with a large blade.
Hernandez, 34, was initially charged with murder, assault and weapon possession. On Thursday, prosecutors said they are now pursing only assault charges as they continue to investigate whether both the stabbing and murder charge are justified.
“Wow ... Justice, huh?” Robert Burrell scoffed at Malik’s vigil. “I just want justice. I want justice for my sons.”
The father slammed the district attorney’s decision to continue investigating before hitting Hernandez with a potential murder charge.
“You telling me this guy is going to go scot-free with murdering my son?” he asked. “Murdered him in cold blood and stab his brother. Like is we serious?”
Hernandez was placed on supervised release.
Robert Burrell voiced certainty to the Daily News that his children hadn’t tried to steal anything.
“I can tell you from my heart, I know on my heart, my kids did not steal anything from that store,” he said. “He was going to the store for his grandmother. My sons are givers, not takers.”
Malik Burrell was visiting from Maryland to celebrate his birthday with family when the deadly brawl began around 9:45 p.m. Tuesday.
Dad Robert Burrell said neither he nor other family members were allowed to visit Bobby in the hospital as he awaits arraignment.
“I haven’t spoken to him,” he told The News. “They haven’t let me see him. They cuffed him to a bed. I’m not getting anything from anyone. I didn’t even get a call when my kids were stabbed. I had to hear it from the streets.”
The family continues to struggle to wrap their head around the slaying.
“Over shrimps?” exclaimed Zalmar Eusobio, the mother of Bobby’s 12-year-old daughter.
As he was led from the 30th Precinct stationhouse on Wednesday night in his kitchen scrubs, Hernandez insisted the whole thing was an accident.
“I’m sorry,” he told reporters. “I didn’t mean to hurt him.”