The super of a Brooklyn apartment building was killed during a violent dispute with a man who was allegedly part of a crew that had been stealing packages from the building since the summer, according to police and sources.
The 41-year-old, a married dad of three young kids, was rushed from his building on Ocean Ave. in Ditmas Park to Kings County Hospital Center in critical condition shortly after 8 a.m. Wednesday, according to the NYPD.
The super, whose identity was withheld pending family notification, suffered multiple blows to the head and was pronounced dead shortly after, cops said.
A 30-year-old man whose identity was not revealed was taken into custody, police confirmed. The exact relationship between the two is unclear, but sources noted that the fight appeared to start as a verbal altercation that turned violent.
Johnny Garcia, a 55-year-old porter who worked with the victim for 15 years, told The Post that a fight likely broke out over a chronic theft problem the building staff and tenants have dealt with over the last several months.
Garcia said that a trio of scalpers has repeatedly come by the apartment and made off with tenants’ packages, but that the thefts recently started happening more frequently.
He said that the person of interest in police custody came to the apartment “at least three times” before and once tried “to break open the door with a screwdriver.”
A “package theft alert” pasted inside the building warned residents about the crew of thieves, who would repeatedly buzz random apartments until they were granted entry into the lobby, according to the sheet.
Garcia added that “some tenants, they see and then tell them to go” — but not his friend and co-worker.
“A man came to rob the packages and [the super] saw him and he tried to hold him for the police to come. It looked like a fight inside because the carpet looked like it was moved. He tried to keep him, to hold him for the police,” Garcia said.
Garcia surmised that the victim spotted the thief shortly after dropping off his children, who are all under 8 years old, at school.
“I still can’t believe it. [The super] was a very good guy. Very good guy with me, the best guy. I know him very well. He was a working person, working very hard,” Garcia said.
The porter added that the super had only just returned from a trip to “his country” to visit family, so they hadn’t seen one another in a while.
“I see police. I see all family. I say, ‘what happened?’” Garcia said.
“I came in happy to see him to say hi, but no.”
The victim’s relatives told The Post that he was “a great man.”
A cause of death hasn’t been determined yet, and the police investigation is ongoing.
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