The 18-year-old college freshman stabbed to death in Manhattan’s Flatiron District was mistaken for a gang member when he was attacked while traveling home for the holidays, police said.
Bronx native Denzel Bimpey, a SUNY Morrisville student, was on a bus from Syracuse to New York City Friday when he and his friends got into an argument with another group of college students — one of whom ended up knifing him in the chest, according to cops.
“While they’re in Syracuse, the two groups are engaged in a verbal dispute, where the perpetrator group starts talking some gang language asking our victim’s group ‘what block you from?,’” NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said Tuesday.
“And they respond, ‘we’re not in a gang.’”
The rest of the ride downstate was uneventful, but the spat turned violent when the bus arrived near East 26th Street and Park Avenue South around 10:40 p.m., and passengers went to get their luggage, cops said.
“At this time, our victim attempts to grab the male who ends up stabbing him in a bear hug to keep from getting stabbed,” Kenny recounted to reporters. “Unfortunately, it doesn’t work out, and he gets stabbed three times.”
A wounded Bimpey ran down the block with his friends with the other group — students at Onondaga Community College from Harlem — hot on their trail.
That’s when Bimpey “drops to the ground and starts to bleed out,” Kenny said.
“The perpetrator group realizes he’s down, and they run back up Park Avenue where they enter into a black SUV and flee the scene,” the police official added.
“The victim’s group has no prior arrest history. It just seems to be students that came across a group that may have mistaken them for other gang members.”
a Bronx gang called Nine Blocks.
The fatal dispute is believed to be tied to a feud between rival gangs, the Six Blocks of Harlem and the Bronx’s Nine Blocks, according to cops.
“We believe our victim group may have been mistaken as Nine Block members,” Kenny said, adding that Bimpey and his friends were not wearing gang colors.
Detectives were reviewing security footage from the Syracuse bus station that showed the murder suspect and his friends getting out of a car that was traced to Onondaga Community College.
The suspected attackers appeared to have been staying involved with gang beefs on social media even though they attend college hundreds of miles away, officials said.
The NYPD said an unidentified person of interest was in custody Tuesday, but charges had not been filed as of Wednesday, the department confirmed.
Denzel’s sister Godslove Bimpey, 28, stressed that her brother was not involved with gangs when reached by The Post Wednesday.
“I can’t comment on the ongoing investigation but my brother was not a part of no gang,” the emotional woman said over the phone.
When asked how the family was holding up while planning Bimpey’s funeral, Godslove said, “not good.”
“We just need the support; It’s not easy to plan a funeral, so we have a GoFundMe account going around, and that’s all I have to say. There’s nothing else I have to say. We just need help.”
Bimpey was remembered as a “wholesome spirit” with an infectious grin by his sister during an interview Sunday.
He was excited to see his family after wrapping up his first semester of college, though he had been sick for several days.
“He was your average kid from the Bronx, trying to do better. He had great role models ahead of him,” Godslove said.
“He knew when something was wrong with you, internally, without you even saying a word. He would randomly text me like, ‘Hey, I miss you. I love you,’” she said.
“At this moment, we just don’t understand,” Godslove continued. “We’re hurt. We’re extremely hurt. It did not need to get to this point. These crimes need to stop.”
Bimpey, a devoted student of the game of basketball, also had three brothers and often took care of his ailing mom, who is utterly devastated by his murder, Godslove said.
“Everywhere you turn, you will see my brother’s face,” Bimpey’s grieving sister said of her brother’s killer earlier this week.
“You will hear his name. He will taunt you. Because the God we serve will do that. The God we serve is going to prevail, and we’re going to get justice because we serve a higher power.”
