A worker at a Manhattan juice shop was badly injured in a brutal knife attack from a woman who stabbed him after not having enough money to pay her her drink, police said, even though he offered to give it to her for free.
The attack occurred just before 8:30 p.m. on April 12 at a store on 3rd Avenue near East 61st Street on the Upper East Side, according to investigators. The woman, identified as Chala Jamison, ordered a beverage but couldn't afford it.
The manager of the shop said that the worker, Luis Morocho, told her to take it and asked her to leave. But police said that Jamison became upset and started trashing the store, so Morocho called 911.
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"She saw him calling the police and said, 'OK, I’ll be back and I’m going to stab you,'" said manager Sam Alherish.
Sometime before the shop closed for the day, the 23-year-old Jamison returned to the store and attacked Morocho. Surveillance video showed her pick up a knife from the counter and dash to the back of the juice bar. Police said Jamison stabbed him in the head, neck, back and hands.
"She jump in grabbed the knife and stab him. He was trying to defend himself," said Alherish. "Nobody would think she would come back really and stab him."
She is then seen on video sprinting out of the store, with the severely injured Morocho right behind her, bleeding profusely and leaving a trail of blood.
Morocho was rushed to New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center in critical condition, police said. The cuts were so deep, NBC New York had to blur the images of him from the hospital. The store manager said his employee is lucky to still be breathing.
"He’s alive, that is the main thing. He’s alive," said Alherish. "Maybe this guy can’t work again because his arm, right arm, she has to pay for it in my opinion."
At a rally with family and the bodega union on Wednesday, a still-rattled Morocho was seen wearing thick bandages, and his wounds will all require additional surgery. What happened to him may keep him from working in the juice store, or anywhere behind a counter, ever again.
"He’s in a weak state and he won't come back to work in a place behind a counter," said Fernando Mateo, of the United Bodegas of America union. "No hard-working man or woman should go through what he’s going through right now."
Jamison was arrested Sunday and charged with attempted murder and burglary.
The union was calling on Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg to deny Jamison bail for the brutal attack. Representatives with the union told NBC New York they didn't think Jamison would get bail, but held the rally to ensure that would be the case.
The bodega group also said that the cops had been called prior to the alleged stabbing, but they said nothing could be done "because it was [only] a threat."
The criminal complaint stated that Jamison left behind a broken acrylic nail at the juice shop after her alleged rampage. When police knocked on the door of her apartment to make the arrest, there was no answer but they heard movement inside.
Police said that Jamison fled by climbing a fire escape and tried getting into another apartment, where she told the resident not to call the police. Police caught up with her and found she took a bag with her, which had the wig, purse, and shoes she was allegedly wearing at the time of the attack. There were also several acrylic nails inside, similar to the one left at the crime scene, police said.
