A convicted killer released from prison five years ago for shooting an innocent bystander at a Queens drag race has now been nabbed in another slay — stabbing a bouncer breaking up a fight at a Brooklyn nightspot earlier this year, the Daily News has learned.
Though 26 years apart, the killings share disturbing parallels. Jose Feliciano is accused of knifing the bouncer in the neck for trying to break up a fight and in 1998 he shot a man trying to defuse a clash at the drag race.
Feliciano, 49, was brought back to Brooklyn last month to face justice after he went on the run for months in the wake of the killing of Laurence Hopkins, who worked security at the Garden Bar & Grill in East Williamsburg, according to authorities.
Hopkins was on the job eating a plate of chicken wings on Feb. 10 when a woman he works with tried to squeeze past the killer and another customer, according to cops.
Obtained by Daily News
Bouncer Laurence Hopkins was stabbed to death in February. (Obtained by Daily News)
That led to a fight and so Hopkins got up to cool down the argument. But Feliciano allegedly pulled out a knife and plunged it deep into the bouncer’s neck, splicing through his tongue, cops said. He also stabbed him in the armpit and chest, cops said.
Customers at the bar nonchalantly finished their drinks as Hopkins bled out, according to police.
Feliciano fled the state but a U.S. Marshals-NYPD fugitive task force tracked him to a home in Youngstown, Ohio, on Sept. 18, according to the Marshals Service.
He was indicted in Brooklyn Supreme Court on murder and other charges on Oct. 16 and ordered held without bail. His lawyer didn’t return a message seeking comment Sunday.
On Oct. 11, 1998, Feliciano, then 24, shot 22-year-old Steven Julian of Hempstead, L.I., during an argument on Francis Lewis Blvd., a notorious drag race hangout in Bayside.
Feliciano was convicted of murder and robbery after a week-long trial in 2000 but the conviction was tossed on appeal because of a mistake made during jury selection. In 2005, he and prosecutors reached a deal — 24 years in exchange for a guilty plea to manslaughter rather than a new trial.
“The defendant shot a man who had stopped a fight,” then-Queens District Attorney Richard Brown said after the original verdict was reached. “He then fled from the police and repeatedly endangered the public by continuing to flee from them.”
NYPD
Suspect Jose Feliciano is pictured in surveillance footage released by police. (NYPD)
According to witnesses at his original trial, victim Julian joined a pal, Coron Graham, looking for a drag race the night of the killing, qns.com reported.
Feliciano told Graham, “What a fine bi—hing car,” and Graham’s girlfriend took offense so Graham took out a baseball bat, Julian’s brother told the outlet.
Julian pulled the bat out of his pal’s hands just before Feliciano opened fire, killing Julian.
“There was a viable self-defense case,” Feliciano’s defense lawyer Howard Greenberg told The News after the plea deal was reached. “He came at him with a baseball bat – so what is a guy supposed to do? But when an innocent bystander gets killed it makes it a much more difficult case.”
Feliciano was released from prison in 2019 and finished his parole in 2022.
Hopkins, the slain bouncer, worked as a barber with his brother since his youth until the shop they owned closed down in the 2000s.
Obtained by Daily News
Laurence Hopkins. (Obtained by Daily News)
Police released surveillance footage of the suspect in Hopkin’s stabbing a week after the slay and asked the public’s help identifying him.
“When they showed the clip of when he killed Larry I’m like, ‘I seen this guy several times,’” Hopkins’ close pal, Keith Bazemore, said Sunday. “When I saw that white Yankees hat I was like, ‘I seen this guy over and over. He wears that hat all the damn time.’”
Bazemore added that Feliciano typically hung out on Graham Ave. and Broadway, about a five-minute walk from the nightclub. “He was a street dude,” he said. “He was always on the block.”
Feliciano is due back in court Dec. 18.
“I’m just happy they finally caught the guy. Even though it took them a long time I’m glad they caught him,” Bazemore said. ” Most of his friends, they all happy. It was like, ‘About time!’ Some things take a long time but I’m just glad they caught him.”
