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Teen Needs 100 Stitches After Hell's Kitchen Gang Brawl
By
John Del Signore
Published Mar 11, 2010
Modified Mar 11, 2010
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By
John Del Signore
Published Mar 11, 2010
Modified Mar 11, 2010
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15-year-old Leo Perez, a student at Graphics High School in midtown, was in the wrong place at the wrong time Tuesday afternoon when a gang fight broke out on at Eighth Ave. and 49th Street, conveniently located near the Hilton Garden Inn Times Square hotel. Police sources say that around 3 p.m., Isaiah Taitt, 17, of Brooklyn, a member of the Latin Kings gang, was confronted by three Crips. "They motion for him [Taitt] to take your hands out of your pockets. He takes his hands out. He has a knife. They jump him," a source tells the Daily News. Perez was one of bystanders who saw Taitt being kicked and beaten, and when he broke free from his assailants, he brutally stabbed Perez, mistaking him for one of the Crips.
Perez needed more than 100 stitches to close a gaping wound stretching from the bridge of his nose to his neck. "He looked like something out of Saw IV," a police source tells the News. Cops collared Taitt, a student at La Salle Academy, moments after the stabbing, and also arrested the three Crips members. But Perez's face is now wrecked, he can barely talk and he's drinking through a straw. Asked about her son's actions, Tait's mother said, **"I let God be his lawyer."**That should work out well.
Tagged
bloods
crips
gang violence
hell's kitchen
stabbing
John Del Signore
Originally from the Albany area, John Del Signore has called NYC home since 1995. In addition to his thousands of meticulously-crafted bespoke blog posts for Gothamist, his writing has also been published in The Awl, Deadspin, The Nervous Breakdown, and performed at The Brick Theater in Brooklyn.
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