The killer wanted for stabbing a father of three to death at a Brooklyn bodega bought a cup of coffee inside before throwing it in the victim’s face in the fight leading up to the slay, shocking video shows.
Victim Najee Berry, 34, was knifed multiple times in the back and torso behind Mucho Loco Deli and Grocery in Brownsville Tuesday morning.
“He was too good of a person to die like this,” said the victim’s mother, Claudina Berry. “He never started problems, struggles. He didn’t deserve to die the way he did.”
Surveillance video from inside the deli on Sutter Ave. near Junius St. shows the killer following Berry into the store shortly before 6:30 a.m.
He appears to glare at Berry while Berry is making a purchase. The masked assailant then buys a cup of coffee before following Berry outside, where an argument begins.
Footage outside the store shows the two arguing along Junius St. around the corner from the deli before the stabber hurls the coffee into the victim’s face. The killer appears to hold a knife in his other hand.
Video shows the two men swinging at each other as they move along Junius St. until they are both mostly out of camera range.
Moments later, Berry appears back on camera, staggering toward the deli, where a passerby found him bloodied on the cold sidewalk.
Berry was rushed to Brookdale University Hospital. Cops are still hunting for the killer.
Berry moved with his mother to Crown Heights several years ago. He grew up in Brownsville and often returned there to visit family and friends.
Many of those friends and relatives were on hand Tuesday night for a memorial in Berry’s honor at Sutter Ave. and Mother Gaston Blvd., near where he was raised and just a few blocks from the deli where he was killed.
The vigil was so crowded police came to disperse the crowd after several hours, the mother said.
“It was so many people that they wanted everybody to go home,” the mother said. “People were crying. Everybody was interacting with each other, you know, just showing up.”
Berry, a customer service representative, was the father of three children, a 7-year-old son and daughters ages 11 and 3.
“He loved his kids. He was always with them,” the mother said. “They’re not too good. Not too good.”