A deli worker gunned down by a gang member inside an East Village bodega was killed just days after meeting his only son, the victim’s cousin told the Daily News on Monday.
As Abdul Saleh, 28, bled to death in his brother’s arms on the sidewalk outside of Sal’s Deli & Grocery on Saturday, his thoughts were of his children. Saleh was father to a 3-year-old daughter and a 2-year-old son he had just met for the first time on a trip to Yemen, returning the day before he was killed.
“Abdul told his brother to take care of his kids before he died,” Saleh’s cousin, 31-year-old Basam Hussain, told The News.
“The brother was saying, ‘Please don’t leave me. Don’t leave me. Stay with me, please.’”
Saleh’s wife, currently in Yemen with the couple’s children, had to be hospitalized after learning of her husband’s senseless murder, Hussain said.
“His wife is doing bad, real real bad,” the victim’s cousin said. “She’s in the hospital. Her body stopped moving, hands frozen, it’s like a shock she had.”
Saleh got into an argument with his killer that was caught on surveillance video inside his family’s store on the corner of Avenue B and E. 13th St. around 11:35 p.m., cops said.
After the fight spilled onto the street and into the intersection, the shooter opened fire, police said.
The victim’s cousin said the alleged gunman was known to the deli’s workers and had been prohibited from entering the store, but flaunted the ban.
“He always bothered them, for almost a year, everyone in the store,” said Hussain. “He wants to take stuff for free, grab and go, always trying to fight them. “He caused a lot of problems. Stealing, fighting, racist things.”
“(He was told) he can’t be in the store for like a year,” the cousin added. “He still come, he don’t care.”
Theodore Parisienne / New York Daily News
East Village deli worker Abdul Saleh was fatally shot during an argument with a customer inside his family’s store, Sal’s Deli & Grocery, on the corner of Avenue B and E. 13th St. in Manhattan on Saturday, April 25, 2026. (Theodore Parisienne / New York Daily News)
Hussain said his cousin had worked at the deli for 15 years and was beloved in the community.
“He knew everyone around here even when they were kids, all the families,” the victim’s cousin said.
But Saleh, who once told ABC7 New York that he welcomed a plan under then-Mayor Eric Adams to install panic buttons in 500 delis, didn’t feel safe in his own store, his cousin said.
“To be honest, he didn’t want to be here no more. He didn’t feel safe,” said Hussain. “He was talking about safety, like we call the cops, they never answer and come 3, 4 hours later.”
The suspected shooter is in critical but stable condition after being struck by a ricocheting bullet from his own gun, police sources said. He has not yet been charged.
Police sources said the suspect is a gang member who in 2016 was one of 120 Bronx gang members busted by the feds in what was then the biggest gang takedown in New York City history.