EAST HARLEM, Manhattan (PIX11) — It was a violent and random stabbing spree that left two men dead, three others injured, and a city on edge. An East Harlem bar spearheaded a fundraiser to help two heroes who stopped the violence from becoming even more deadly.
“I told them thank you for what you did,” Alfred Cave, the owner of Teddy’s bar, told PIX11 News. “My staff thanks you, and my customers thank you.”
LuLu and Teddy’s bar and grill owner Alfred Cave can’t believe the heroism of two of his regular customers, Shilo and Gabriel, former marines who came to the defense of a female bartender being attacked with a baseball bat by an angry customer.
So now Cave has set up a GoFundMe page to help pay their mounting hospital bills and missed days of work during the holidays.
“It was very heroic of them to do to help someone defenseless,” Cave told PIX11 News.
Police said on the night of Dec. 22, Roland Codrington entered Teddy’s bar with a baseball bat and a pit bull, allegedly to settle a score after police said he felt he had been disrespected at the bar a few days earlier.
When he assaulted the female bartender with the bat, police said two customers sprang to her defense and were stabbed with a long knife.
Shilo, 31, is still in the hospital eight days later with puncture wounds to his lungs and diaphragm.
Gabriel, 35, is recovering at home with deep slash wounds across his back.
“Very heroic,” Tamar Simon, a customer, told PIX11 News. “I appreciate what they’ve done. I would have done the same.”
Police said that besides attacking the bartender and the two heroes, Codrington is being charged with two murders, random, unprovoked attacks that left a 60-year-old pediatrician dead in Marcus Garvey park just hours after the Teddy’s Bar stabbings and a Lower East Side fatal knife attack four days earlier.
Teddy’s bar was created five years ago as a neighborhood community bar, the scene of toy drives and fundraisers for hurricane victims.
And now everyone here is so proud of their hero customers.
“Heroes should be rewarded,” Michael Hooks, another customer, told PIX11 News. “I am really glad they are stepping up for them.”
If you like to help, you can go to their GoFundMe here.
