Nazim Berry was shot in the back of his head on Monday afternoon at Armin Deli in Crown Heights (Picture: Facebook/Nazim Berry)
A worker at a deli in Brooklyn was fatally shot in the head by a gunman who was allegedly angry he wasn’t allowed to make off with a cigar that cost only $2.
Nazim Berry, 37, a clerk at Armin Deli, was shot in the back of the head around 4.15pm on Monday after refusing to give a customer a Black and Mild cigar that retails at $2, police and family members said.
The customer left the convenience store in the Crown Heights neighborhood in New York City and returned with a gun and shot Berry at the front of the bodega, according to Nazim’s mother, Hollie Berry.
Nazim had worked at the shop for many years and it was not the first time that a customer had demanded items for free.
Police released images of a suspect in the shooting who remains at large (Picture: New York Police Department)
‘I knew that it had to be over something stupid because I know his heart,’ said his mother. She added that he was a ‘beautiful person’.
The gunman remains at large. Police released images of a suspect wearing glasses, black pants and a black varsity jacket with black and white sleeves.
A neighbor, Barbara R, 62, called the shooting ‘sad’.
‘He didn’t used to bother anyone,’ she told the New York Post on Tuesday, and expressed concerns of increasing crime in the neighborhood.
‘It’s getting so that you can’t just live a normal life anymore.
‘Somebody comes up and asks you for a dollar, you have to wonder is this person going to kill me if I say no?’
Crown Heights is just east of the popular Prospect Park that includes the Brooklyn Botanical Garden and the Brooklyn Museum.
The United Bodega Workers of America is offering a $10,000 reward for information leading to an arrest in the case.
It happened neatly a year-and-a-half after murder charges were dropped for Blue Moon bodega worker Jose Alba, who stabbed to death a man who attacked him for a bag of chips. The 62-year-old worker at the store in Hamilton Heights in Harlem stabbed Austin Smith, 35, six times after an argument that started when Simon’s girlfriend had issues paying for snacks for her daughter.
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