Hispanic “superman” died after long agony after being beaten on the street in New York

The NYPD has declared a homicide in the case of José Nicolás Peña, a building manager and father who was beaten on a street in the Bronx and died after a silent agony that lasted more than a year.

The crime dates back to the night of August 31, 2022 and no one has yet been arrested. That night around 11:45 p.m. Peña was beaten during an argument near E. 170th St. and Jerome Ave. He died more than a year later on December 31, 2023, at age 34.

Last month, the city’s Medical Examiner’s Office (OCME) declared the case a homicide after an autopsy determined he died of post-traumatic seizure disorder due to blunt force trauma to the head he suffered during the street fight.

The New York police are asking the public for help in identifying the attacker who beat Pena, who was a father of a child and was just blocks from the building where he lived and worked as a superintendent.

“All he wanted to do was work and support his family,” his brother told the Daily News. Pena initially went home after the fight, but then drove himself to Jacobi Medical Center, where he was kept overnight.

“They warned him that because of the injury he would have seizures,” his brother said of the hospital stay. “He had never had them before.”

Peña soon resumed his normal life, but was never the same again, loved ones say, and died suddenly on Dec. 31. “My brother was doing his usual things and it happened, like any seizure. Nobody expects it… He was ready for a new job, he was ready for a lot of things. It was sudden.”

No arrests have been made and no suspects have been identified. Anyone with information is asked to call 1-800-577-TIPS (8477) and for Spanish, 1-888-57-PISTA (74782). They can also be reached via crimestoppers.nypdonline.org or by texting 274637 (CRIMES) followed by TIP577. All communications are strictly confidential.

Street violence has claimed several victims recently in New York, both among strangers and neighbors. Last week, a Hispanic man was arrested on suspicion of stabbing his neighbor, a church choir singer in Brooklyn (NYC), to death in the street, over an apparent old dispute.

At the end of July, a Hispanic man died after being hospitalized with serious injuries caused by a chair during a neighborhood fight in Queens.

Last month, two friends leaving a bar in Hell’s Kitchen, Midtown West, Manhattan, were beaten unconscious and one of them died after spending several days in critical condition in the hospital. New York police are looking for a suspect in the attack who was illegally riding a moped on the sidewalk.

Days earlier, a 14-year-old boy was arrested on suspicion of randomly beating Shi Yanan, a 58-year-old woman, with a baseball bat in Lower Manhattan (NYC). His accomplice remains at large.

And in early July, a Dominican father was stabbed to death during a brawl that began with a minor collision in broad daylight in the Bronx (NYC). Days later, a 53-year-old Ecuadorian man died after hitting his head when he was attacked by another Hispanic man near a hotel in Times Square, a world-famous tourist mecca.