A dispute over food near Delancey Street and the Bowery turned violent early Wednesday, leaving three men stabbed and a suspect still on the run. Police say the attacker argued with a 26-year-old man before stabbing him in the stomach, then stabbed two others who tried to step in.
The stabbing was reported around 1:13 a.m., according to ABC7 New York, which cited police accounts of how the confrontation unfolded. Officers say the suspect got into an argument with the 26-year-old over food, and the fight escalated quickly from there.
A witness told the outlet the trouble actually started inside a grocery store, where the suspect had reportedly asked for food or money. That detail has not been confirmed by police, but it lines up with how the confrontation spilled out onto the street and turned physical.
Two Bystanders Stabbed Trying to Break It Up
Once the fight began, two other men tried to intervene and pull the attacker away from the 26-year-old victim. Instead, the suspect allegedly stabbed a 21-year-old man in the left shoulder and a 19-year-old man in the left arm, according to the same report. All three victims were rushed to Bellevue Hospital, where they were listed in stable condition.
Investigators described the suspect as a man with dreadlocks, dressed all in black and wearing a top hat. He fled westbound on Delancey Street after the stabbing, and as of the report, police had made no arrests and had not recovered the weapon used in the attack.
Part of a Pattern of Knife Violence Downtown
Wednesday's stabbing adds to a string of blade attacks that have rattled Lower Manhattan in recent memory. A separate incident described by amNewYork involved one man stabbed and another slashed in two separate Lower East Side attacks. Grocery stores in particular have proven to be flashpoints: another case reported by ABC7 New York involved a man stabbed at a gourmet food market in Long Island City in March 2025, where police were still trying to determine whether the attack happened inside the store or out on the street.
A similar case reported by PIX11 described a man stabbed inside a Manhattan grocery store after a dispute, with two people taken into custody in that instance. PIX11 also reported a separate case of three men stabbed in Crown Heights, with police likewise searching for a suspect afterward.
For now, the Lower East Side case remains unresolved. No arrests have been made, the weapon has not been turned up, and police are still looking for the man in the top hat who walked away from the scene.
