Longtime NYC fruit vendor fatally beaten with baseball bat in ‘cold-hearted’ attack: cops

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Posted on 09/26/2024 10:19:59 AM PDT by lowbridge

Two brutes — including one who was busted for a separate assault last month — beat a longtime Bronx fruit vendor and father of three to death with a baseball bat in a “cold-hearted,” unprovoked attack earlier this month, cops and sources said.

Romel Jarrett, 37, and Terrence Downes, 44, wrestled 56-year-old Leslie Sanchez to the ground and bashed him in the head with the bat at his selling spot on East Fordham Road near the Grand Concourse in Morris Heights around 7:40 p.m. Sept. 12, according to authorities and a criminal complaint.

He was taken to St. Barnabas Hospital in critical condition, and succumbed to his injuries on Sept. 14, police said.

-snip

“When I heard a street vendor was attacked on the street, I never thought it would have been him,” family friend and former neighbor Autumn Pearson told The Post Wednesday.

“He was a peaceful guy.”

Sanchez and his wife had two boys and a girl, the youngest son only a baby, Pearson said.

“He was a good father,” Pearson said.

“He took care of his family. He was the husband, he was the father…everything he did was for his family. This is just so sad. It was so cold-hearted. It was senseless. He just had a baby boy!”

When asked about Sanchez’s wife, Pearson simply said, “She’s doing OK,” but declined to elaborate.

Sanchez initially hoped to sell fruit near his home on Grant Avenue, where he’d lived for two years, before settling on the East Fordham Road location, Pearson said.

“He had been at that corner for five years. He thought of the idea to sell fruits and vegetables right here,” the family friend said.

“He went out and bought a white truck and that’s how he started.”

(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...

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1 posted on 09/26/2024 10:19:59 AM PDT by lowbridge

To: lowbridge

To: lowbridge

3 posted on 09/26/2024 10:25:25 AM PDT by xoxox

To: Tom Tetroxide

4 posted on 09/26/2024 10:26:39 AM PDT by Deo volente ("When we see the image of a baby in the womb, we glimpse the majesty of God's creation." Pres. Trump)

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