Teen Arrested For Fatal Stabbing Of Inwood Bodega Worker: Police

INWOOD, NY — An 18-year-old is facing murder charges in connection with the fatal stabbing of an Inwood bodega worker, police said.

Jose Paniagua of the Bronx was arrested Saturday and charged with murder, gang assault and criminal weapons possession, police said. The teenager is accused of stabbing 28-year-old Mohamed Awawda to death outside of his family-run bodega on Dyckman Street near Vermilyea Avenue, police said.

Awawda was stabbed on the night of Wednesday, June 19 after asking a group of men not to stand by the front door of his store, police said. Officers responded to 201 Dyckman Street around 8 p.m. to find Awawda unconscious and unresponsive suffering a stab wound to the chest, police said.

EMS rushed Awawda to NewYork-Presbyterian Columbia University Medical Center where he was pronounced dead, police said.

The murder prompted local City Coucilmember Ydanis Rodriguez to call on the NYPD to allocate more resources for patrols in the neighborhood. Rodriguez said that drug activity is still active in parts of the neighborhood such as Vermilyea Avenue.

"Crack and the drug epidemic was producing in the 90s more than 110 homicides every year, and we are not going back to those times," Rodriguez said. "We need to be sure that the community continues being safe for people living here for decades."

Awawda's death is the second homicide recorded in the NYPD's 34th Precinct this year, according to precinct crime statistics as of June 9. There was only one murder in the precinct in all of 2018. The 34th Precinct spans all points north of West 179th Street in Manhattan.