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Young man savagely beaten to death by mob in Park Slope attack
BY Kate Nocera, Erin Durkin and John Lauinger
DAILY NEWS WRITERS
Monday, August 2nd 2010, 4:00 AM
One of Brooklyn's most affluent neighborhoods was the scene of a savage homicide early Sunday when a mob of revenge-seekers clubbed a young man to death with crowbars and a tire iron, cops said.
The men that killed Alex Santiago, 22, in the bloodbath on Fifth Ave. in Park Slope then pounced on a 20-year-old, stabbing him repeatedly.
The stabbing victim, identified as Jonathan Burgos, was in stable condition last night at Lutheran Medical Center.
Local resident Joseph Rivera said he tried to end the slaughter before the group of thugs - estimated by witnesses at about 20 people - could finish off the second victim.
"All these guys were just pounding on this kid. I was screaming, 'Stop! Stop!' " Rivera, 43, told the Daily News. "Everyone was just standing around watching like there was nothing going on."
Rivera said he was beaten back with punches and pelted with glass bottles as the mob viciously sought payback for what police sources described as an earlier fight with Santiago and Burgos.
"I got on the phone to call the cops and one of the attackers threw a crowbar that smashed the window next to me," Rivera said. "I've lived here a long time and I've never seen anything like this."
By the time the mob fled about 12:10 a.m., the mortally wounded Santiago - whose wife, Stephanie, is due to give birth next month - was lying near the corner of 12th St., across the avenue from where Burgos was attacked.
Santiago, his head bludgeoned, was taken by ambulance to New York Methodist Hospital, where he was pronounced dead, cops said.
He had five arrests on his record, including busts for felony assault, grand larceny and menacing.
Police officials did not reveal a motive for the violence, saying only that it followed a previous dispute, which witnesses said was on Fifth Ave. near 10th St.
"There was a huge fistfight," Kaia Ross-Duggan, 24, a restaurant worker, said, describing the earlier clash. She said she saw "one of the same guys who got hurt . . . walking down the street with blood on his face and a baseball bat."
Witnesses said Santiago and Burgos were jumped by four men who pulled up in a car and were quickly joined by roughly a dozen others.
Santiago's cousin Jessica Vega, 28, said the victim called his wife on his cell phone after the first altercation, claiming he was attacked by people he did not know. "From what we hear, it's over looks - he was looking at them wrong," Vega said. "They told him, 'What you looking at?' and, next thing you know, they were fighting and then they came back with more guys."
Vega said Santiago was raised in Park Slope and recently was laid off from a maintenance job at Yeshiva University.
"It's wrong, it's childish, stupid," Vega said as Santiago's pregnant wife stood by, too distraught to speak. "I'll remember my cousin being happy all the time - always had a smile on his face," Vega said. "He would have been an excellent father."
Young man savagely beaten to death by mob in Park Slope attack
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