A Harlem fish market worker stabbed two brothers he caught shoplifting inside his store, killing one of them, police said Wednesday.
The chaos began inside the store on St. Nicholas Place near W. 155th St. when one of the brothers tried to swipe a container of shrimp around 9:45 p.m. Tuesday, police sources said.
Workers stopped the man from shoplifting and threw him out. But moments later the would-be thief returned with his brother.
The brothers, ages 25 and 29, started pocketing food and threw a stool and other heavy objects at the workers behind the counter, police sources said.
A brawl broke out and a 34-year-old employee lunged at the two men with a knife, stabbing both of them in the chest, cops said.
Medics rushed both brothers to Harlem Hospital where the younger man died, cops said. His name was not immediately released.
Cops recovered the knife at the scene and took the employee to the 30th Precinct stationhouse for questioning. Charges against him were pending.
The case was reminiscent of last year’s deadly encounter between another Harlem bodega worker initially charged with murder for stabbing a man who came after him behind the counter of the Blue Moon bodega.
The charges against Jose Alba, 61, were eventually dropped amidst a public outcry with Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg eventually concluding Alba acted in self-defense.
But Alba spent five days on Rikers Island following the lethal encounter with Austin Simon, who became enraged when the store worker grabbed a bag of chips from his girlfriend’s 10-year-old daughter after the mom couldn’t pay for the snack with her benefits card.
A video obtained by The News shows Simon, 35, getting in Alba’s face and shoving the clerk into a chair behind the counter, with the worker sent careening into a wall of merchandise.
Alba grabbed a nearby knife and stabbed Simon six times, piercing his heart, lung and jugular vein in his neck, while the girlfriend stabbed the store worker in the arm during the melee.