By The Diary
Sep 19, 2024, 01:11 AM EDT
Jorrell Shoals, a man arrested for illegally drinking alcohol on the street, ended up being a suspect that the police were looking for for the death of Ramón Cruz in the Bronx (NYC).
Officers arrested Shoals and later discovered he was a suspect in the death of Cruz, a 54-year-old homeless man who suffered a fatal attack in June on Willis Av in Mont Haven, according to News 12.
Cruz was stabbed and beaten in the face on the night of June 23 and taken to the hospital. He died almost a month later, on July 17, as a result of his injuries, he recalled. NBC News.
Shoals, 37, of Minnesota, was arrested by NYPD officers in the South Bronx around 8:30 p.m. Tuesday after he was seen drinking alcohol from an open container in public, according to police. He was later charged with murder.
The motive for the crime is unclear. The suspect allegedly killed Cruz by “repeatedly and forcefully striking the victim in the head with closed fists while the victim was lying on the ground, directly striking the victim’s head and also causing the victim’s head to repeatedly strike the hard ground,” according to court documents cited by Daily News.
All charges are merely accusations and the defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
Stabbings and slashings are common in New York City overall. There were 4,493 cases in 2023 through early December, a 6% increase over the same period in 2022. In parallel, arrests for knife crimes increased by almost 30%.
A previous NYPD report warned in August 2023 that fatal stabbings had risen 29% that year in the city compared to before the pandemic (2019). Knife attacks have become more frequent in a variety of settings: streets, buildings, homes, buses, subways, parties, schools, commercial establishments, and ATM areas.
A 30-year-old man was stabbed to death on his night off in Brooklyn, New York, over the weekend after completing his first week at two new jobs, according to his devastated family.
Last week, a Hispanic man pleaded guilty to stabbing his son-in-law to death in the entrance of the house the extended family shared in Long Island (NY). On Monday, a laundry employee was stabbed by a furious customer because his clothes were not ready.