Police have arrested a suspect in the fatal slashing of a man in the neck during a clash inside an Upper West Side building, cops said.
The news brought some level of solace to the victim’s mother, who spent the day of her son’s death celebrating Good Friday with him before he left to go out with friends and wound up losing his life.
“That’s great news,” said Milicent Clindinin, mom of the victim, Shariff Clindinin, 40.
Clindinin did not recognize the name of her son’s killer, who cops identified as David Felix, 43.
Shariff had just finished cooking up some seafood, an annual Easter tradition celebrated by the family, with Shariff making red snapper, Milicent told the Daily News.
“And after he made the red snapper,” she recalled, “he got dressed and said, ‘Ma, I’m just gonna go. I’m just gonna go out and see what the fellas are doing. It’s Easter weekend.’ And I was like, ‘OK, go enjoy, have fun.’ And I texted him and I told him that I’m not feeling good, I’m tired. I’m gonna go lay down now. He’s like, ‘OK, I’ll check on you.’ Little did I know that that was going to be the last time I saw my baby,” Clindinin said of her last conversation with her son.
Shariff was attacked three blocks away from his home, inside a W. 104th St. building near Columbus Ave., in NYCHA’s Frederick Douglass II Houses complex, around 11:55 p.m. on April 18. Felix, his alleged attacker, lived in the building, according to cops.
Shaiff suffered multiple stab wounds to the neck and was rushed to Mount Sinai Morningside Hospital but he could not be saved.
His assailant ran off and a motive for the attack still isn’t clear as police continue searching for the suspect.
“I can literally say that I had my last supper, because I will never have another red snapper again made by my son,” Milicent Clindinin said.
Shariff, who is the father of a 12-year-old daughter, had served as his mother’s primary caretaker ever since she became disabled in 2017. Milicent said it’s a struggle for her to stay in the apartment that she shared with her son, and that she only slept for “three hours” after hearing the news.
“I’m hurt,” she said. “I’m deeply hurt because they took my baby away from me. Forty years of being in this neighborhood, he’s never been confrontational. He’s never been in any fights. He doesn’t go around getting in people’s faces. Never, ever been that type of person. That’s why everybody around here loves him. This is why this is so shocking to everybody,” Milicent said, “like, people can’t understand this.”
Milicent did not know why her son would have been visiting the building where Felix lived and her son was attacked.
The family posted a GoFundMe for Shariff as they prepare for funeral arrangements.
Shariff was a massive fan of sports personality Stephen A. Smith. On a local level, he helped out at a neighborhood senior center.
“If he saw somebody outside with a bunch of groceries, he helped them,” his mom said. “When the seniors are going home, if someone needed to be walked home, he’d walk them home. He was just that type of loving, caring person. He wasn’t one of those outgoing people where he was outside all the time. He was more of a homebody and randomly and occasionally he would go out. He didn’t have a mean bone in his body, not a mean bone.”
Originally Published:
