NEW YORK — A fight between a CVS worker and a man attempting to shoplift from a Midtown branch of the chain turned deadly Thursday when the employee knifed the thief in the torso, cops and police sources said.
Employee Scotty Enoe and a man allegedly trying to steal goods got into an argument near the door of the CVS pharmacy on Broadway near West 49th Street, according to authorities.
“It was a homeless guy. He had a big problem with the security guard with the CVS,” street vendor Modo Gui, who witnessed the melee from across the street, told the New York Daily News.
The thief punched Enoe, according to a police source, with the employee then pulling a knife and stabbing the 50-year-old man at about 12:26 a.m., cops said.
“They fought and he stabbed him. Boom. Stabbed him dead. It’s crazy,” Gui said.
“This guy attacked him. My brother is a good person. In a situation like that he would defend himself,” Enoe’s sister told the Daily News.
“He’s mentioned a lot of people come off the street and just take stuff. I told him to be careful,” said the sibling, who wished to remain anonymous. “These people are coming off the street and robbing and you never know what they might have — a gun or a knife.”
Officers responding to a 911 call for a robbery in progress arrived to find the would-be shoplifter with a stab wound to his torso.
Medics rushed the man to Bellevue Hospital Center, where he was pronounced dead.
Enoe, 46, was arrested and charged with murder and criminal possession of a weapon, police said.
He has no criminal record, they added.
Enoe’s sister, who lives with him in Brooklyn, described her brother as a breadwinner in their family despite his battle with sickle-cell anemia.
“He works two jobs and he’s never been in trouble. All he does is work. He goes from one job to the next,” she said. “He’s dedicated to hard work and his family. He helps people.”
“I’m on disability. I don’t know what I’m going to do,” she said.
Enoe’s friend Wayne Augustine echoed the sister’s sentiments.
“Scotty’s a real cool guy. It must have been self-defense,” he told the Daily News. “Scotty’s not an aggressive or violent person. He suffers from sickle-cell anemia really fiercely and he still goes to work.”
The deceased man had multiple prior arrests for shoplifting, including at CVS and Walgreens, a police source said.
A manager at the CVS declined to comment on the stabbing.
The pharmacy is located on the first two floors of the historic Brill Building, which was once a bustling musical epicenter in New York City where pop artists including Carole King penned, recorded and sold hit songs.
Amid an explosion of shoplifting in the city, Mayor Eric Adams and city officials earlier this year unveiled a plan to tamp down on retail theft.
The goal is to address root causes like poverty and drug addiction while homing in on organized gangs of thieves.
As of July 2, petit larcenies in the Midtown North precinct jumped 14.6% — with 1,331 cases compared to 1,161 in the same time frame in 2022 — according to NYPD stats. Compared to the same period in 2021, the precinct saw a whopping 54.4% jump in petit larcenies.
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