‘INSANE’ BX. SLAY
Student is ‘ambushed’ by stranger
Forgetting his wallet cost him his life.
A father-of-six NYU lab technician was beaten to death for no apparent reason by a maniacal neighbor when he returned home to get the wallet he forgot on his way to night school, cops and relatives said.
Bakary Darboe, 46, was just about to exit his East 156th Street building in The Bronx on his way to class at Mercy College at about 5 p.m. Thursday when he turned back to get the billfold from his ninth-floor apartment.
Darboe was riding the elevator back down when the doors opened on the seventh floor — and he was suddenly dragged out into the hallway by career criminal Junal Jordan, 40, cops said.
The brute, who has 20 prior ar- rests, pummeled Darboe with his fists and a cellphone as Darboe begged him, “Get off me!” according to police.
Jordan, who lives on the seventh floor, was seen shadowboxing in the hallway just before the horrifying violence, which was captured on surveillance footage.
A neighbor witnessed the beginning of the assault and quickly shut the door.
Darboe, a native of Gambia, was found dead at the scene. One of his knocked-out teeth was found near his body, along with a bloody backpack, keys and two cellphones, according to police sources.
Jordan, a parolee who was most recently locked up from 2009 to 2014 on a robbery conviction, fled the Melrose building but was nabbed a few blocks away by police who found him in blood-soaked clothes, cops said.
Jordan — whose rap sheet dates to the 1990s and includes arrests for drug possession and reckless endangerment — would only admit to cops that he got into a fight in the Bronx building, according to sources.
He then demanded a lawyer and was charged with murder and manslaughter.
He was arraigned Friday night and held without bail.
Police believe the victim and his attacker did not know each other.
On Friday, more than a dozen of Darboe’s grieving family members gathered inside his apartment wearing traditional Gambian garb.
“He’s a very kind man, humble,” said the victim’s oldest brother, Mbemba Darboe, 61. “He’s religious. He loved his family, really. He’s a great man. We cannot forget about him.”
Darboe, a devout Muslim who belonged to the local Gambia Is- lamic Society and has been working as a lab technician at NYU Langone Medical Center for five years, immigrated to the United States about a decade ago, according to his brother.
The slain man’s 6-year-old daughter, Jakong, said softly, “He always helped me with my homework” even though her father “always had a lot of work.”
When asked about the murder, Mbemba said, “We can forgive, but we cannot forget as Muslims.”
Mercy College spokeswoman Catherine Cioffi said in a statement, “The Mercy College community is deeply saddened to learn of the death of Bakary Darboe.
“He was a determined student committed to his education. We extend our deepest sympathy to his family and friends for their loss.”