By Patrick Hedlund and Heather Grossmann
DNAinfo News Editor
LOWER EAST SIDE — Two teenagers were stabbed in a brawl involving school children on the Lower East Side on Wednesday, police on the scene said.
NYPD officers were called to the corner of Hester and Eldridge streets about 1:38 p.m. when a fight between nearly a dozen school-age kids broke out, police and eyewitnesses said.
Two boys, described as 14 or 15-years-old, were stabbed during the incident and taken to the hospital in stable condition, police said. One suspect is in custody.
A detective on the scene said one of the victims appeared to have a fairly deep stab wound.
Raymond Li, a manager at a cell phone store nearby, said he saw one of the victims with heavy gauze wrapped around his midsection.
Jonathan Angles, 16, said he watched the fight from the 14th floor rooftop of his apartment building across the street.
He said he saw the attackers pull the sneakers off one of the victims and leave them on the ground, which he said may have been a sign of disrespect.
“They said somebody got sliced, it was over beef,” Angles said people at the scene told him when he came downstairs to find out what had happened.
Angles said he saw one of the victims sitting on the curb after he was attacked with what looked like a knife wound below his armpit. He said medical workers on the scene patched the kid up.
The high school student said that scenes like these become more frequent in the neighborhood when school lets out for the summer, but he thought it was early in the year for this type of violence.
“The summer’s not even here yet. That’s when the spice comes,” Angles said. “The summer’s always crazy…It’s all different beef.”
Edwin Rodriguez called 911 from the grocery store down the street when the fight broke out.
“He looked alright, but he was scared,” Rodriguez said of one of the victims.
