SUGAR HILL — A man was found dead late Friday night on a street corner after what witnesses said looked like a quick, but brutal, altercation with a gang of young men.
According to police, a call came in at 11:34 p.m. for a man that was found collapsed on the southwest corner of West 155th Street and Frederick Douglass Boulevard, in Sugar Hill.
Police said the man, 42, was unconscious and unresponsive when rescuers arrived, due to a trauma to the head. He was transported to Harlem Hospital, where he was pronounced dead upon arrival.
As the NYPD cleared up the investigation scene Saturday morning, neighbors said the man, whose name has not been released, pending family notification, was generally kind, but appeared to have been caught up in a violent fight.
"He was a good man," said a neighbor, Lucille, who did not want her last name used. Lucille said the man lived in the Polo Grounds Towers with his girlfriend, who she said was pregnant, and the woman's mother.
"I feel bad for his girl[friend]," she said. "This place just keeps getting worse. There's always people dying like this around here."
Shermain Thompson, 44, from Harlem, said she heard it was a fight between the victim and a young man who had jumped the victim the week prior.
Thompson said she thought the victim may have instigated the altercation, but that he appeared to have been hit very hard, and early.
"They got to fighting, and the other guy hit him, and he fell down real hard and didn't move any more," said Thompson. "The other guy, he just ran off fast."
Nobody answered the door at the apartment that neighbors identified as the victim's residence. Police said no arrests have been made, but that an investigation is ongoing.
Editor's Note: The original story incorrectly described the neighborhood as Hamilton Heights, when in fact the incident took place within Sugar Hill.