Instead of calling it a night after taking his ailing sister home from the hospital early Sunday, Leonardo Sanchez went to an after-hours joint in the Bronx to hang out and have a few drinks, his sister says.
It was the last time she saw him alive.
Sanchez, 46, was slain several hours later during a dispute with several people on a sidewalk near E. 183rd St. and Grand Concourse in Fordham. As the quarrel, escalated Sanchez was stabbed repeatedly in the arm.
The group split up and left in multiple cars, cops said. No arrests have been made.
The victim’s sister, Patricia Sanchez, 51, is heartbroken over her brother’s death. She is also upset with the after-hours culture she believes breeds violence.
“All those places that are open after hours, the police have to do something and make sure that they close those places down,” the sister said. “I ask our new mayor to make sure that he checks on those places. Make sure that he stops all those illegal places, because they’re destroying families. People are intoxicated with drugs, alcohol. They’re not thinking right.”
Police say the victim was stabbed about 6:45 a.m. Sunday after some sort of gathering indoors near the scene. Medics rushed Leonardo to St. Barnabas Hospital but he could not be saved.
“That person did not realize that he has a mother, that he has kids, that he has a whole family that’s crying for him,” Leonardo’s sister said of his killer.
Leonardo picked up his sister, who has a heart condition, from Mount Sinai Hospital after she was discharged 2 a.m. Sunday and took her to her Hamilton Heights home. He lived with his mother nearby his sister.
“I told him to go home and go to sleep but I went up and I don’t know what happened after that,” she said. “He said, ‘You want me to take you up? I said, ‘No, that’s okay. Just go to sleep.”
Leonardo was a single father living apart from his two daughters and liked to go out sometimes.
“He was a family-oriented individual,” Patricia said. “He would do anything for his family. Very loving.”
Theodore Parisienne / New York Daily News
A 46-year-old man was stabbed to death on E. 183rd St. and Grand Concourse in the Bronx early Sunday. (Theodore Parisienne / New York Daily News)
Leonardo did two stints in prison for selling and possessing of drugs in Manhattan when he was a young man, public records show. He was most recently released in 2012.
“I cannot tell you that he turned his life around,” his sister said. “I know he had a problem with alcohol. We as his family know this. But he was not an individual that deserved to be killed. No one deserved to be killed.”
Leonardo was born in the Dominican Republic and came to the U.S. as a teenager. The family is planning a funeral in New York City and one in the Dominican Republic, where they plan to take his body.
“We need justice,” his sister said. “Our family member did not deserve to die that way so justice needs to happen. Because if this situation continue, they might bring the same situation to other families.”
Leonardo’s death was the eighth murder in the 46th Precinct this year compared to three slayings by this point last year, a 167% spike, NYPD stats show.
In the Bronx as a whole, murders are slightly down, with 50 victims so far this year compared to 55 by this point last year. Citywide, homicides are down 20% so far this year compared to the same period last year.
“He was a beautiful person. Everybody loved him in the neighborhood,” said Leonardo’s cousin, Juana Almonte, 73. “Every time he see me he say hello, kissing, hugging.”
“We’re going through a lot,” she added. “It hurts.”
With Rocco Parascandola