http://www.nynewsday.com/news/local/crime/nyc-stab0413,0,586328.story?coll=nyc-homepage-breaking2
Arrest made in fatal Bronx subway stabbing
BY ROCCO PARASCANDOLA AND LINDSAY FABER
STAFF WRITERS
April 13, 2005
A teenager on his way to school in the Bronx Tuesday morning was
stabbed to death during a subway melee in which his two friends were
also attacked, police said.
Police arrested a 15-year-old boy in relation to the incident. Charges
against him were pending.
The dead teen, Marvel Martinez, 17, may have been stabbed because the
machete-wielding suspect thought his girlfriend and Martinez had lunch
together on Monday, police said.
Investigators later learned that one of the two injured teens,
Fernando Ramales, 15, shared a meal with the girl at John F. Kennedy
High School in the Marble Hill section, police sources said.
The attack occurred just before 7 a.m. as the victims waited for the
northbound No. 4 train at the 183rd Street station. Martinez was
heading to Dewitt Clinton High School, while Ramales and Daniel
Valentino, 15, were heading to Kennedy. With several straphangers
watching, four other teens approached the trio.
"Stab him," one of the four teens said, prompting another to plunge
the machete into Martinez's back and back of his head, police said.
Ramales tried to flee, but was caught by the machete-wielding teen,
who stabbed Ramales in the arm, police said.
Valentino was able to flee the elevated station, but was caught on
183rd Street and stabbed in the arm, police said.
Ramales and Valentino were admitted to Jacobi Medical Center and St.
Barnabus Hospital, respectively. They were in stable condition last
night.
The suspects fled and were being sought last night. Police said they
believe the stabber is a Walton High School dropout.
Police also said tension between rival gangs may have played a role in
the violence.
Martinez's friends described him as a likeable jokester, but said he
ran with Trinidanos, a gang that is often at odds with two other
gangs, Bones and Dominicans Don't Play or DDP.
DDP, the friends said, is responsible for the slaying, but police said
they still had not confirmed any gang links.
Martinez's family did not vigorously dispute his alleged gang ties,
but his mother, Anna, said he was never violent.
"If they got the wrong kid, that's the worst of all," Anna Martinez
said inside the family's East Tremont home. "I am trying to be strong.
"God says we have to go through this, but it is so hard."
Throughout the day, relatives and friends poured into the home
Martinez shared with his parents, two sisters and grandmother, Hilda
Camposano, who heard a news re****t of the stabbing and was taken by
the description of the victim. "That sounds like Marvel," she
remembered saying.
Martinez's girlfriend, Nela Grullon, 17, said she was struck by how
much her parents took a liking to him. "They liked him so much," she
said.
Copyright © 2005, Newsday, Inc.
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