The Bobster
Senior News Editor since 2004
Cops looking for migrant accused of stabbing asylum-seeker outside converted NYC hotel
A parking garage attendant who witnessed the stabbing told The Post that the victim appeared to instigate the fight, and chased the suspect with a stick before the stabber turned on him.
nypost.com
Cops looking for migrant accused of stabbing asylum-seeker outside converted NYC hotel
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Published April 7, 2024, 1:09 p.m. ET
Police are combing the Big Apple for a migrant accused of stabbing another asylum seeker during a scuffle outside a hotel shelter in Hell’s Kitchen, law enforcement sources said.
The suspect fled the scene after slashing the 35-year-old victim — who is also a migrant — during a dispute outside the Watson Hotel on West 57th Street, one of several hotels in the five boroughs that has been converted into a shelter during the migrant crisis.
A parking garage attendant who witnessed the stabbing told The Post that the victim appeared to instigate the fight, and chased the suspect with a stick before the stabber turned on him.
The attendant said the suspect “was trying to avoid” a confrontation with the smaller victim — whose wife was egging him on during the scuffle, the attendant said.
“The guy who got stabbed was the problem,” the witness said.
The victim was taken to Mount Sinai West Hospital and listed in stable condition.
The attendant said police regularly respond to the hotel to break up “little fights.”
The Watson is a one-time three-star hotel that was repurposed to help handle the influx of migrants from the US border with Mexico over the past two years.
Scores of migrants were living in tents outside the hotel for a time when it reached capacity.
The hotel was the site of tense standoff with migrants last year who refused to leave the hotel for new living arrangements the city had made for them at the Brooklyn Cruise terminal.