Stabbing Victim Dies

Norwood Man Dies After Brutal Gun Hill Attack

(Photo by David Greene)

By David Greene

A Norwood man beaten and stabbed 15 times in a senseless E. Gun Hill Road attack has succumbed to his injuries after spending 13 days in a coma. The fatal stabbing is the latest in a series of recent attacks that has been captured on surveillance video.

Police say 20-year-old Jorge Arrango, of E. Gun Hill Road, was attacked by two men he had recently befriended. The men beat and stabbed Arrango on the corner of E. Gun Hill and Jerome Avenue, at 12:05 a.m., on Friday, May 18.

Sources say Arrango aggressively defended himself against the first attacker, when a second man plunges a knife into his chest. One of the suspects, apparently injured in the brawl, limped west across Jerome Avenue. Arrango staggered away on his own power, nearly getting hit by a taxi in the process.

It is believed Arrango was assisted by an unidentified female until police and EMS arrived.

Officers from the 52nd Precinct would follow a blood trail to 3464 Knox Place, where police would break down the third-floor apartment of Ramon Sanchez, 24, and Luis Davis, 28, who were arrested and charged with assault in the first degree.

Arrango was rushed to Jacobi Hospital in extremely critical condition and later transferred to NYU Medical Center where the young man was waiting on a kidney transplant, when doctor's declared him brain dead on May 30. The following day doctors would remove him from life-support.

The victim’s mother Jeanette Febles, 55, explained her new reality, "His brothers and sisters are all crying. They come and see me and they go out to the card shop and they go out to the alley," where a make-shift memorial continues to grow in honor of the well liked young man.

Febles says not hearing Arrango sing while listening to his iPod as he walked through the apartment or not seeing him drawing on his sketch pads are just the first things she is only just beginning to notice. "It's like, this is not happening to me, his brothers and sisters are all crying."

Arrango's relatives-- including six sisters and two brothers and members of the community, have created a make-shift memorial outside the building that keeps growing every day and have begun raising the $20,000 needed for the simple funeral- money that Febles says she just does nt have.

Febles, who is currently battling cancer, contested, "It's like too much money, I can't afford that... my sister and my friends are trying to see what they can do."

Ironically, Febles' next-door neighbor Joann Mickins may be the only one in the building who has an understanding to what Febles is now going through. Mickins' son Corey, 25, was shot dead several years ago during an altercation with members of the NYPD in East Harlem.

Corey said of Arrango, "He was a nice, sweet guy and never bothered anyone. It's a tragedy that he was killed this way."

A police source stated, "The victim had a dispute with the suspects. He was stabbed with a kitchen knife. They (the suspects) caught up with him at a restaurant at the corner of E. Gun Hill and Jerome Avenue... he was pursued by the two males and stabbed."

An additional charge of attempted murder has been tacked on to the growing criminal complaint against Sanchez and Davis. A spokesman at the Bronx District Attorney stated on June 4, that the case, "Is under investigation." so additional charges of murder and weapon possession could be added to reflect Arrango's death. 

Arrango's death is the first murder in the 52nd Precinct so far this year, compared with three murders for the first five-months of 2011. Murder in the 52nd Precinct has continued to drop since killings peaked in 1990, when 38 were reported for the year.

The precinct covers the neighborhoods of Norwood, Bedford Park, Fordham and University Heights.