NYC migrant dad stabbed at Randalls Island shelter was slain over woman

A Venezuelan immigrant stabbed to death in the city’s on Randalls Island was killed in argument over a woman, police sources said Sunday. Dafren Canizalez, 24, was on line for food at the relief center’s dining tent when 27 year old Moises Coronado allegedly plunged a blade into his upper body just before 7:30 p.m.

Saturday, cops said. “The fight was next to the dining room but they fought over a woman. The Venezuelan took the woman from the Peruvian,” said Jose David, also from Venezuela, who witnessed “The Venezuelan and the Peruvian were fighting next to the dining room and the Peruvian stabbed the boy with Venezuelan nationality twice.” Medics rushed Canizalez, a father of three, to Harlem Hospital but he could not be saved.

“I feel very bad knowing that my brother is dead,” the victim’s brother told the Daily News in Spanish. The brothers arrived in Texas together last month. The victim’s brother is currently in Denver. “My brother was a good, responsible father, a good son and a good brother,” the victim’s brother said.

“One day we decided to leave our country of Venezuela for a better future, help our children and family. He was not a man of trouble. He really liked to work to earn an honest living.” “Our mother, family, is very upset knowing that she cannot do anything since we are a low income family,” he added.

“I am Dafren’s only relative here in the United States.” Coronado was taken into custody at the scene. Police charged him with murder. He was awaiting arraignment in Manhattan Criminal Court Sunday. Roger Castillo, who befriended the victim over the past few weeks at the center, said he had a “normal conversation” with Canizalez just 20 minutes before the killing.

He knew the victim by his middle name, “Alexis,” and described him as “a good person, a good friend.” “I was speaking with him yesterday and it was normal,” he said. The tent shelter on Randalls Island, which opened last year, has the capacity to house 2,000 asylum seekers. Steve Hansen, who walks past it every day on his way from Queens to Manhattan to work, said he’s not surprised by the violence though he said the center has been noticeably safe since its opening.

“For as many people that are over there…. I’d have to say it’s comparatively under control,” he said. “Only one death in this entire time they’ve been there? One stabbing? That seems minimal to me.” Nabil Jajhlaq, 30, a Moroccan immigrant who’s lived at the center for two days, said he learned about the killing after he took a bus home from Times Square Saturday night.

“We come, we saw police here. We want to enter but they don’t let us enter because the police was there. It was raining,” he said. Police kept him out of the center for about an hour, he said. Jajhlaq complained of minimal security at the migrant center. “When you hear that someone dies, you think one day it’s going to happen to you,” he said.

According to the latest City Hall data, the Adams administration has spent around $3.5 billion on sheltering and providing services for the tens of thousands of mostly Latin American migrants who have arrived since spring 2022. Nearly 70,000 remain in city shelters. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s administration has bussed more than 33,600 asylum seekers to New York City with little or no coordination with city officials since 2022 —leading Adams to claiming they owe New York City at least $708 million.

Adams also issued that requires bus companies to give his administration at least 32 hours notice before they drop off migrants in the city and set a strict 210 minute time window for when buses can drop off migrants. Some bus companies have responded by dropping off migrants in New Jersey, where they’re guided onto city bound trains.

Abbott, a staunch supporter of former President Donald Trump, started shipping migrants to New York and other liberal cities at the outset of the asylum seeker crisis in 2022..