By The newspaper
02 Sep 2023, 08:19 AM EDT
Derrick Williams, an ex-convict who was on probation, was arrested on suspicion of fatally stabbing Roberto Jiménez and his friend Gina Cooks in a confusing incident inside a residential building in The Bronx (NYC).
The violence apparently started when Williams (55) groped Cooks (29) on the stairs of an apartment building in Norwood and Jiménez came to his defense (45), on the night of August 25.
Williams faces two counts of murder and attempted murder for striking a 33-year-old woman in the wrist who was with the victims during the fatal confrontation, police said.
The detainee is a convicted thief who has served five prison terms since 1985. He was on probation until 2026, he explained. Daily News.
Williams had been arrested on Aug. 16, just nine days before the double homicide, for attacking his girlfriend in the same building and slashing her tires with a silver razor with which he threatened her, prosecutors said.
When he was arrested for a series of robberies in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, in 1997, then-NYPD Commissioner Howard Safir called him “a classic example of a lifelong repeat offender and parole violator who has consistently abused the parole system to commit additional crimes”, according to The New York Times.
Last week Cooks, Jimenez and the other unidentified woman were walking up the steps of the Rochambeau Ave. building near E. 206th St. around 10:15 p.m. Friday when Williams inappropriately grabbed Cooks, sparking a fight with Jimenez.
The three chased Williams to his fourth-floor apartment, where the suspect grabbed a knife, according to police. During the fight, he stabbed Cooks and Jimenez in the chest.
Police officers who responded to the scene found Cooks and her friend outside bleeding. The women, in a panic, told police that Jimenez was still on the 4th floor. EMS rushed Cooks to St. Barnabas Hospital, but were unable to save her.
Jimenez was pronounced dead at the scene. He lived in the same building, but in a different apartment than Williams. Residents told police the suspect was not listed as a tenant, but that he had often stayed in a 4th-floor apartment.
Williams appeared to be living with at least one of the victims, said a tenant who asked not to be named. But that detail has not been confirmed by the police.
All charges are mere accusations and those charged are presumed innocent until proven guilty in court.
In a similar domestic tragedy, this week a Hispanic man stabbed to death his partner and two babies, and then himself, inside the apartment he was assigned as a “super” in a building on the Upper West Side of Manhattan (NYC).
A recent NYPD report warned that fatal stabbings have risen 29% this year in the city compared to before the pandemic (2019). Attacks with bladed weapons have become more frequent in various settings: streets, buildings, homes, buses, the Metro, parties, schools, and even commercial establishments and ATM areas.