By Olivia Scheck and Yepoka Yeebo
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
WASHINGTON HEIGHTS — A 16-year-old boy was stabbed to death in the lobby of an apartment building, directly across from an elementary school, during the early hours of Wednesday morning, police said.
Officers discovered Jeffrey Disia with two stab wounds in the chest in the lobby of 575 West 177th Street, between St. Nicholas and Audubon avenues, at 4:24 a.m, according to police. He was taken to Columbia Presbyterian Hospital, where he was pronounced dead on arrival, the NYPD said.
Disia, a sophomore at George Washington high school, had been playing Xbox games with friends in the building where he was later killed, according to one of the dozen or so mourners who gathered outside the crime scene Wednesday morning.
The man, who would not give his name but said he'd been friends with Disia for five years, said he spoke to the 16-year-old on his cell phone around 3 a.m.. Disia told him he was about to leave the apartment for his home on 173rd Street, between Broadway and Fort Washington, noting that it was a school night, the friend said. Two hours later, the friend received a call informing him that Disia had been killed.
Cops escorted residents around a trail of blood, which led from the lobby down the building's front steps, as investigators collected evidence from the lobby Wednesday morning. There were security cameras in the corridor and outside P.S. 115, which is directly across the street.
The victim's sister, Jennifer Disia, 17, wept hysterically outside the scene of the stabbing.
"He was a nice kid, he didn't do nothing to nobody, he just liked to be with his friends," she said.
"I don't know why they did this to him."
Neighbors said the block has had its share of criminal activity, athough nothing as serious as this.
"There are drug dealers around, you see them get arrested," Begica Cabrera, 36, said as she dropped off her six-year-old daughter at P.S 115, a stone's throw from the crime scene.
"But this. A 16-year-old kid? Right next to a school. It's not good."
