A 37-year-old man who worked at a New York City liquor store was shot and killed on a Brooklyn street Monday after he refused to give a man a free cigar, his mother said.
The victim, Nazim Berry, was shot in the head on Franklin Street near the Botanical Gardens and the Brooklyn Museum around 4:15 p.m., New York City police said.
The man was taken to Kings County Hospital Center, where he was pronounced dead, police said.
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Nazim Berry’s mother has a cell phone with a photo of her son on it. Berry, a bodega employee in Brooklyn, was shot to death Monday after she refused to give her customers free Black & Mild cigars, she said. (Peter Garber)
The suspect fled and no arrests have been made, according to the NYPD.
At the scene, Berry’s mother told reporters that someone asked her son to buy a Black and Mild cigar. When he refused, she said, the two began arguing.
“Their attitude was that they couldn’t take no for an answer,” she says.
NYPD officers stand outside a Brooklyn mall where an employee was shot and killed on Monday. (Peter Garber)
“So, from what I heard, they went to get the gun and came back, and when the man tried to pull it out, Nazim saw it and they got into an argument over it. ” she added. “Then you ducked down and there was an argument, so the guy put the gun right next to his head and shot him.”
According to his mother, Berry lived nearby with his grandmother and had worked at the warehouse for several years.
He was never in trouble, she said.
A Brooklyn sidewalk is lined with candles in memory of murdered bodega worker Nazim Berry. who was killed on Monday. (Peter Garber)
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“I knew it was pointless,” she recalled hearing about the shooting. “I know his heart, so I knew he had to go through something stupid.”
She said Berry had previously complained about people asking him for free things at work.
