By Jennifer Glickel and Heather Grossmann
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
HARLEM — A handyman said he was "lucky to be alive" after his cell phone saved him when a gun-wielding ex-super of the Harlem building he works in fired at him Thursday — and the bullet lodged in the phone, not his body.
Police were called to 29 W. 119th St. about 11:13 a.m. where they found the co-op's new handyman, Juan Camarena, 54, with very minor injuries after the building's recently fired ex-super shot him near his left thigh, NYPD and the victim said. The cell phone in his jacket pocket — a Nextel — took the bullet, and he only sustained a scratch, Camarena said.
NYPD on the scene said they had video footage of the shooter leaving the scene, but did not release the suspect's name.
Camarena was brought on by the building's new super, Jose Cruz, 42, who said the shooter, who was angry about being fired and losing his apartment in the building, threatened him Monday, saying, "You'll save yourself a lot of trouble by not working here."
Cruz said he was working in the building with Camarena on Thursday when the ex-super returned and threatened him and the handyman again, and then left.
After a while he returned, and found Camarena doing some work on a stairwell between the second and third floors, the victim recounted.
"I was sweeping and he yelled, 'you gotta get the f--k out of here!'" Camarena said the shooter yelled. "I wanted to jump him, but he didn't give me a break and shot me right away."
The handyman said that because of his cell phone, he was barely injured, even though he estimated the shooter was only five or six feet away.
"Thank god for the cell phone," Camarena added.
The president of the building's co-op board, Glenn Leach, 54, said that he knew the new super and his team had received a threat earlier in the week. But Leach said he had not known that the ex-super had actually done prison time in the past for shooting someone, which was revealed Thursday morning when police ran an ID check on the suspect.
Bill Crumlic, 45, who lives in the apartment next door to the incident, said he was the one who called 911 during the shooting Thursday morning.
"I heard one very loud clear pop and then a man was screaming, 'he shot me he shot me, call the police,'" Crumlic said.
"This completely surprises me, I never would have thought he would shoot someone, let alone even have a gun," Crumlic said of the shooter.
Patrick B., who did not want his last name to be used, lives in a high rise across the street and saw cops canvassing the roof for the armed man.
"This is kind if a creepy block, no one walks down this block. I'm surprised it happened in general, but if it was going to happen, this block makes sense," Patrick B. said.
Police on the scene said they were searching for the armed suspect.
