The man stabbed to death following a minor fender-bender on a Bronx street was part of a group of onlookers who took sides with the drivers and an unhinged boyfriend called to the scene — who eventually plunged a knife into the victim when the crowd turned on him — police sources said Wednesday.
Ronald Gomez-Mesa, 29, was stabbed to death after a teen and a woman got into a crash outside Randy’s Deli and Grocery on W. Tremont Ave. and Phelan Place in Morris Heights at about 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, according to the sources.
The woman involved in the crash called for her boyfriend, who witnesses said lived just feet away, to come to her aid. Police sources told the Daily News on Wednesday that the man stabbed Gomez-Mesa to death.
“He looks like a neighborhood guy,” the source said of the killer. “Someone over there should know who he is.”
Relatives of the slain man were told that the stabber may have just been released from prison.
“He apparently had an ankle monitor so he may have been on probation,” Gomez-Mesa’s younger sister, who wished not to be named, told The News. “He went towards my brother so my brother got up and started defending himself.
“My brother got up and started fighting for his life,” the heartbroken sibling added.
The bloody clash began when a group of people who witnessed the crash, including Gomez-Mesa, involved themselves in the disagreement sparked from the fender bender, police sources said.
The boyfriend got into the face of the young driver and the crowd began to turn on him, they added.
After a few moments, the boyfriend — who is holding a black plastic bag the entire time — realizes the crowd across the street is watching him and so he goes over and slaps a moped rider wearing a helmet in the face, the video shows.
He returns to the fender-bender and continues harassing the young driver who crashed into his girlfriend, who seems to be cowering in front of him, when the man he slapped jumps on his moped and hurls a bottle at the boyfriend, video shows.
The outraged boyfriend tries to grab the moped rider, who zips away. the boyfriend then zeros in on a second moped rider across the street, this one in a red T-shirt, and knocks him off his ride, surveillance video shows. Gomez-Mesa is seated just a few feet away.
After a few seconds, the boyfriend runs over to Gomez-Mesa, trying to grab something from his hands, the video shows. The victim immediately comes to blows with the boyfriend and chases him into the street.
“He didn’t cause (the fight),” said Gomez-Mesa’s sister, 25. “He was just there sitting down. My brother isn’t a problematic person.”
“My brother started running back, trying to get away, because he didn’t have anything on him to defend himself,” the sister added. “As he was backing up he then got hit by a car.
“I just wish my brother got more help,” she said. “Someone could’ve helped him.”
Gomez-Mesa ran off again but the stabber ultimately caught up with him outside Rainbow Day Care, according to witnesses.
“They were screaming out and in front of the daycare,” one witness told The News. “[The victim] was standing and then he fell down.”
When officers arrived, they discovered Gomez-Mesa suffering from a knife wound to the chest.
“The police lifted his shirt and we saw the deep, deep wound,” the witness continued. “The police tried CPR but he was not moving. Then the paramedics did until they put him into the ambulance.”
Medics rushed the victim to Saint Barnabas Hospital, but he could not be saved. Gomez-Mesa lived less than a half-mile from where he was stabbed, cops said.
His family was on a trip to Pennsylvania when they heard the news, according to his sister.
“We came straight from Pennsylvania when we were informed he was stabbed. We ran straight here and when we got in Jersey that’s when they told us he died,” she recalled. “My mom is suffering. There’s no words that can describe her pain. She lost a part of her life.”
Gomez-Mesa had a 3-year-old daughter and was taking defensive driving classes so he could be a TLC driver, his sister said. He often hung out near the corner with his friends.
“My mom worried about him hanging there. She would say it’s a dangerous corner but it was a regular hangout spot,” the sibling said. “There were arguments but nothing like this would happen there.”
No arrests have been made.
“I just want people to know he was a kind hearted person,” the sister said. “He didn’t cause that, he was just there sitting down.
“I just want justice and I don’t want three years four years — I don’t want him to get out,” she added of the killer.
