Police were looking for multiple suspects on Friday after a man was stabbed and killed in Brooklyn on Thursday, NYPD officials said.
Officers responded to a home on Halsey Street near Central Avenue in Bushwick around 3:40 p.m. and found 24-year-old Shaliek Smith outside with a stab wound to his chest, according to police.
Paramedics took him in critical condition to Wyckoff Heights Medical Center, where he later died, officials said.
Police said six men fled the scene on foot, but detectives were still investigating whether those men were involved in the incident.
Smith’s grandfather, Felix Mosely, said in a phone interview on Friday that his grandson’s death echoed that of Smith’s father, who was jumped and killed just blocks from his home in Bed-Stuy in 2003.
“When they took my son, he was 23. And now my grandson, he just made 24,” said Mosely.
Mosely said Smith was visiting his mother’s side of the family on the block where police say he was killed. Detectives told Mosely they were reviewing surveillance footage from the block.
“He was a good kid,” Mosely said, adding that he raised his grandson after Smith’s father died. “I sent him to Martial Arts, all of that, made sure he had something to do.”
Smith had been working in a local restaurant, and liked to draw superheroes in his spare time, according to Mosely. He also had a 2-year-old daughter who used to live with him, his grandfather said.
Two homicides were reported last year in the NYPD’s 83rd Precinct, which includes Bushwick, data from the department shows. The fatal stabbing on Thursday marked the neighborhood’s first homicide this year.
This is a developing story based on preliminary information from police and has been updated.
