A man released from prison earlier this year for his role in the shocking beating robbery slay of a New Jersey immigrant was stabbed to death with his own knife during a clash on a Bronx subway train, the Daily News has learned.
Nigel Dumas was knifed in the chest on an uptown No. 2 train Saturday after he and his accused killer, riding in separate cars, locked eyes through the window between cars, sources said.
“Right now I’m so emotional … This hurts,” he victim’s aunt Chandra Dumas, 53, told the Daily News as she sobbed Sunday. “I didn’t want his life to end like this. I wish that he had some opportunities in his life.”
Dumas, 33, had been in and out of prison for most of his adult life since his headline-making arrest in 2010 for the robbery beating death of 47-year-old Salvadoran immigrant Abelino Mazariego, a restaurant dishwasher and father of four who was sitting on a bench in a Summit, N.J. park.
Before that killing, Dumas was an aspiring rhythm-and-blues singer who performed under the name Robby Guarantee.
On Saturday, Dumas was riding an uptown No. 2 train through the Bronx when he locked eyes with 37-year-old Shane Cunnison through the window between cars about 3:25 p.m., sources said. When the train stopped at a station, the victim crossed over into Cunnison’s car and the two fought, sources said.
The clash was gang related, according to cops.
Dumas pulled out a knife but Cunnison ended up wrestling it away from him and stabbing him in the chest with it at the Third Avenue-149th St. Station, cops said.
Dumas died at Lincoln Hospital. He had been living in the Bronx, according to cops.
Cunnison has been charged with manslaughter and awaits arraignment in Bronx Criminal Court. He lives in Flatbush, Brooklyn, according to cops.
Chandra Dumas said her nephew fell in with the wrong crowd and his dreams were forever derailed that night despite his attempts to get back on his feet after his conviction.
Nigel Dumas
“He was not in a gang!” she said. “I’m sure he dealt with a lot of depression, issues that he may not have talked about but I’m sure that he did.”
Dumas was part of a group of 14 teenagers who approached Mazariego on July 17, 2010, in the Summit Promenade, across the street from the victim’s job, according to The Star-Ledger.
Dumas, 19 at the time, and another teen, Khayri William-Clark, shouted encouragement during the beating as a third pal, Hakean Fitzgerald, threw the fatal punch, the paper reported.
One member of the group recorded the attack but ultimately was not charged because prosecutors determined he didn’t know a crime was about to take place, according to The New York Times.
Dumas, convicted of aggravated manslaughter, and William-Clark were sentenced to 10 years behind bars while Fitzgerald was hit with a 15-year sentence.
“The system is broken, especially for Black men,” his aunt said. “Mass incarceration is a real thing. If you do the crime you do the time — but the time they’re given, they’re not given anything within that system to rehabilitate.”
Public records show Dumas was released and locked up again three separate times in connection with his sentence and was most recently freed on Feb. 19 of this year.
“When you’re young, the system doesn’t really rehabilitate you and when you get out, you’re labeled,” his aunt said.
“You do your time and you’re still labeled a felon so jobs don’t hire you. You can’t get an apartment. You can’t really be a functional member of society because you’re already labeled. It’s a vicious cycle. What are you going to do to survive? They had no programming. They had no good re-entry program or any kind of educational training for those who have been convicted, did their time, they get back into society. They’re still convicted by society.”
“Those who struggle with addiction have what’s called an isolation time and he kind of isolated himself from family,” she added. “And my mother passed in 2017. He took that hard.”
Cunnison, meanwhile, has an arrest record that goes back two decades, including for firearm and weapons possession charges and for attempted rape, cops said Saturday.
In 2008, the suspect threatened his then-girlfriend over the phone, cops said, before arriving at her home, kicking the door in and forcing himself inside. After punching her, he snagged a knife from her kitchen and turned the weapon on her, police say.
He was last arrested in 2018 after he sexually assaulted a 41-year-old woman while he had a knife on his person, cops said.
