Two men were hospitalized and later charged with assault following a fight in the Norwood section of The Bronx in the early hours of Tuesday, May 19, police said. An NYPD spokesperson said there are two complaints on file for assaults that took place on May 19 in front of 301 East Gun Hill Road, a mixed use, residential and commercial building which houses a dental business at street level.

 

According to police complaint reports, officers responded to a 911 call at around 00.40 a.m. regarding an assault in progress at the location. “Upon arrival, it was determined that two men got into a physical altercation,” the spokesperson said. “A 35-year-old male sustained a laceration to his lip and swelling to his face.”

 

The spokesperson continued, “A 39-year-old male stated he was struck in the face and sustained swelling, a minor bleeding to his lip. When police arrived, they observed the 39-year-old in possession of a drywall tool. Both males were transported to area hospitals for treatment.”

 

Police said Tayron Davis, 39, of Norwood was arrested and charged with riot, assault, and criminal possession of a weapon. They said Darryl Cruz, 35, also of Norwood was also arrested and charged with assault and harassment. Both are presumed innocent unless and until convicted in a court of law.

On Wednesday, May 20, one Norwood resident told Norwood News, “A man was viciously beaten and there was blood all over the sidewalk right in front of the dental office….blood everywhere, teeth everywhere. They just cleaned it up today.”

 

He added, “Somebody was assaulted very badly.” The man explained that he his neighbor had first seen it as he was walking his dog in front of the building. “When I tell you, I saw the blood, it looked like a horror movie,” the resident said, adding that kids were seeing it walking to school later that morning. “There was blood everywhere, on the car, on the tree, on the [inaudible], everywhere!”

 

Norwood News also spoke to local workers in the area on Wednesday about the assault. One man, Alex, who was not working on the night of the incident, said his co-worker told him that he heard a dispute and went outside to see what was going on. He said his co-worker told him, “People from this store went out to see them fighting. One of them had a knife or something. People were starting to scream like ‘Stop! Stop!’ They didn’t.”

 

He said the customers from the store then saw the police passing in a patrol vehicle which stopped at the traffic lights and so they called out to the police to stop and intervene. “They [police] did stop it,” he said, adding that the two people involved were then taken to hospital. The worker added, “The craziest part is they got arrested but by 2, 3 p.m., they were already out. What’s going on with that?” He said a nearby Super later came out and cleaned up the sidewalk. He added, “You’ll see a lot of dents on the floor [sidewalk].”

 

We later spoke to the Super in question, Jovany, and he said he hadn’t witnessed the incident but confirmed he had cleaned up the blood. Asked if he had heard the fight, he said he had not, and had also only heard afterwards from other people who had been in the same nearby store what happened.

 

Jovany said he heard that one man assaulted another with a tool used to chip plaster away from a wall. Gesturing to the corner of East Gun Hill Road and Perry Avenue, he said, “All this area here, it was a lot of blood, a lot, almost maybe two gallons.”

Two gallons is around 7.6 litres. As reported, according to experts at the American College of Surgeons (ACS), the average human body contains only about 5 or 6 liters of blood, and severe blood loss can occur within minutes and can be catastrophic. Read more about how to stop a bleed here.

 

Both men are presumed innocent unless and until convicted in a court of law.