Cops nabbed two ex-cons in the slaying of a 74-year-old man during an ongoing drug war inside Manhattan’s Tompkins Square Park, police said.
Police busted Angel Sardina, 63, and Rafael Macias, 63, in the Bronx around 11:00 p.m. Thursday. The pair was charged with murder for the July 12 shooting which killed one man and wounded another near Avenue A and E. Seventh St. inside the troubled East Village park, court records show. Sardina was also hit with attempted murder charges for stabbing a man in April, near the shooting scene, cops said.
Fermin Frito was selling crack and heroin in the green space at about 9:50 a.m. when gunfire erupted, striking him, and a second man, Edwin “Chunky” Rivera both in their backs, NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny previously said.
Frito later died at NYC Health + Hospitals Bellevue, cops said.
Rivera, 44, who worked as a “steerer” directing potential clients to Frito, ran out of the park to a deli, where cops found him. He refused to talk to cops as he was taken to the hospital to undergo surgery.
It was not immediately clear what role Sardina or Macias played in the deadly shooting.
“Frito was the intended target,” Kenny said. “Rivera gets shot as well but we know Rivera is part of that same drug set.”
Kenny previously said that two drug crews have laid claim to Tompkins Square Park and are fighting over turf.
“This is connected to previous violence in the park,” Kenny said.
Upon arrest Thursday, Sardina was identified as the suspect in an April 9 attempted murder, cops said. Sardina allegedly approached a 66-year-old man from behind on E. 7th St. near Avenue B, pulled a knife, and stabbed him in the upper back, cops said. He ran off heading towards Avenue A and disappeared. Medics rushed the victim to a nearby hospital where he was treated for a severe laceration. It was not immediately clear if the stabbing was related to the fatal shooting, cops said.
The arrest wasn’t Sardina’s first run-in with the law, police sources said. The suspect served several stints in New York prisons, including nearly 18 years for assault and robbery in 1983, six years for assault in 2007, and nearly two and a half years for attempted criminal possession of a controlled substance in 2016, Department of Corrections and Community Supervision records show. His most recent stint was for roughly three years for attempted criminal possession of a controlled substance in 2019. He was released and paroled through December of this year.
Macias also did several stints in upstate prisons, DOCCS records show. He served over six years for robbery in 1984, one year for robbery in 2006, one year for grand larceny in 2011 and two years for grand larceny in 2015.
Sardina’s last known address is less than two miles from the shooting scene in Two Bridges. Macias last lived in Norwood, in the Bronx, cops said.
Frito had been arrested 13 times, mostly for drug sales. His last arrest was in 2012.
Rivera, Kenny said, has a “substantial criminal history … too much to mention.”
After the shooting, Rivera’s relatives told the Daily News Rivera was an innocent bystander heading to breakfast when he was caught in the gunfire.
Sardina and Macias’ arraignments were pending in Manhattan criminal court on Saturday afternoon.
