Young mourners erecting a memorial for a teen stabbed and killed Tuesday during a spasm of violence on a Bronx commercial strip shoplifted candles from a local bodega — and threatened a worker at gunpoint when he tried to stop them, startling video shows.
Hours after cops say a wild daylight clash over marijuana left 18-year old 18-year old Shannon Kelsey fatally stabbed in the chest, a 15-year-old slashed in the lip and a 38-year-old man shot in the leg, the bodega worker was threatened at gunpoint early Wednesday.
“They took about five or six candles,” said store clerk Ayoub Labib, who was finishing the end of his 12-hour shift when the shoplifters burst into the bodega on Webster Ave. near E. 170th St.
“I told him, ‘Yo, come pay me.’ He turned to me and said, ‘Shut the f—k up.’ And he moved outside. I followed him. I opened the door and followed him outside, told him again, ‘Yo, what’s going on? You need to pay me.’”
That’s when Labib was threatened with the gun.
“The fat guy showed me the gun and followed me,” Labib said. “I ran inside, opened and closed the door. Then the Spanish guy and the fat guy came in with the gun. He said, ‘I am coming for you.’”
Labib, a professional boxer who has been working at the bodega for only three months, said the robbery and the threats were senseless.
“Five candles? That doesn’t make sense,” he said. “And you come in with a gun? That’s stupid.”
“If you’re doing stupid s—t, you need to be locked up,” he added. “That’s why I called the cops … Why you come to me with a gun? For no reason. I’m working. I’m just telling you, ‘Pay me.’ That’s it. Why you want to use a gun in my face? What’s going on with you?”
Shannon was initially thought to have died from a gunshot wound but was actually stabbed to death in the mayhem, cops said Wednesday. His friends gathered outside his building at NYCHA’s Butler Houses.
Candles spelled out Shannon’s childhood nickname, “Fatz.” Bodega workers believe the stolen candles were for the memorial across the street.
“He was a good kid,” said Shannon’s father, Marvin Kelsey, a 65-year-old retired construction worker. “It could have been anybody’s kid but unfortunately it was my child.”
Shannon was arrested March 19 for a Bronx mugging three days earlier in which he was accused of joining eight accomplices in kicking and punching a man after he was punched to the ground. They started to rip the victim’s clothes off before stealing his cellphone and keys, according to a criminal complaint.
The teen was released on $30,000 bond and due back in court in September to face charges including robbery and assault.
Kelsey acknowledged his son had past brushes with the law but blamed his son’s surroundings.
“There are no bad kids around here,” the dad said. “They are a product of their environment. It’s a concrete jungle … I grew up in the Bronx, the Patterson Houses, so I know what it’s all about.”
Shannon escorted neighborhood kids on field trips as part of a job working for a local summer camp, his dad said.
“He was my only boy,” he said. “There is no way to describe this loss. There is no way to describe how to handle it.”
The wild clash was sparked when a group of young men tried to rob an older group of marijuana they were selling near Southern Blvd. and Westchester Ave. by the elevated subway tracks, police sources said. Cops are scouring for surveillance video that could help them identify Kelsey’s killer. No arrest have been made in the afternoon bloodshed.
“He was cool, really cool,” said Shannon’s mother, Lanay Kelsey, fighting back tears. “I’m his mother. I loved him and now I got to bury him.”
Cops had no trouble finding footage of the bodega beef, which sent terrified customers hustling out of the busy store.
A shoplifter in a White Sox hat is seen waving a gun and threatening to shoot the worker, who manages to escape behind a locked door.
“Yo, where y’all candles at,” one of the crooks asks after entering the store.
Moments later, after the candles are stolen and the worker runs outside, the gunman chases him back in.
”I will shoot you in the f—kin’ neck,” he yells with the gun pointed. “C’mon, where you at. I’ll put one in your head. You know whose neighborhood this is?”
Lenard Wilkens, 32, was arrested for robbery, weapon possession, possession of a controlled substance and possession of an ammo feeding device. Jalen Thompson, 19, was arrested for robbery.
Members of the United Bodegas Association called on the NYPD to increase patrols around bodegas in the area and urged the Bronx DA to work to keep the suspects locked up. Their arraignments were pending in Bronx Criminal Court.
“Our bodegas are under siege,” said Radhamés Rodríguez, president of the United Bodegas of America. “How can we operate in peace when criminals walk in, steal, and point guns at our workers?”
