Police are still searching for a livery cab driver who fatally stabbed one man and wounded another in an early Saturday morning dispute. Isaac Martinez, 26, and Carlos Perez, 33, had just bought two six-packs when they hailed a livery car just before 5 a.m. Saturday in Woodside. When the unidentified driver noticed they were drunk, he tried to get them out of the cab, and an argument ensued. The driver then got a baseball bat and hit Perez in the head.
The driver then allegedly grabbed a knife and stabbed Perez in the arm and torso. As he was leaving, Martinez attempted to stop him, and the driver stabbed him in the chest. According to the News, a witness who saw the incident threw one of the beer bottles at the car, smashing the rear window (the Post claims that the driver smashed the window when he was attacking the passengers with the bat).
“There was lots of blood,” witness Carlos Arcillas, who was walking to work when he saw Martinez on his back, told the News. “(His friend) was holding his side and checking on him,” Arcillas said. “He was talking very soft, because I think he was suffering or in pain ...I was nervous, there was too much blood.” Both men were rushed to Elmhurst Hospital, where Martinez died from the stab wound, which pierced his heart.
Perez is currently in stable condition there, where he is being treated for stab wounds to his right bicep and chest. Friends were in shock by the death: “He was like family. I’m still in shock. I just saw him yesterday [Friday],” Hugo Ortego, manager at a bar where Martinez formerly deejayed, told the Post. “He was popular in the neighborhood. He used to work at different bars as a deejay. He loved music. He didn’t have a bad temper. Isaac is not argumentative.”
