Tenant Under Arrest After Queens Landlord Pushed To His Death In Apparent Rent Dispute
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- A dispute with a tenant turned violent in Queens over the weekend. A landlord looking for a late payment was allegedly shoved down stairs to his death.
On Monday night, CBS2's Jessica Layton heard from heartbroken neighbors who know the victim's family and also learned more about the suspect under arrest.
By all accounts from his friends on 102nd Street in Corona, the victim was a gentleman, friends with everyone he met and above all else a family man.
Layton has learned 71-year-old Edgar Moncayo lost his life on Sunday after being pushed down a flight of stairs, and it was all captured on his Ring video.
The video starts by showing Moncayo standing in the stoop. As the door opens he begins arguing with the tenant, identified as 23-year-old Alex Garces, apparently over a late rent payment. CBS2 has learned Garces had just moved into the unit a month ago and was already behind on the rent.
The video shows a man punching Moncayo and the landlord falling down eight brick steps. The tenant then comes down the stairs and appears to check on the victim and then has a reaction that indicates something terrible has happened.
Friends said Moncayo is from Ecuador and has a wife, a son, a daughter, and several grandchildren. His friends who are realtors down the road said he was just in recently looked for a new home for his family.
"We did a lot of prayers," family friend Gladys Ramirez said. "I told her my family will do prayers for her husband. She says please do that. That's the only thing she wants from us. I said, anything. Just give me a call. Anything that you need. So she called me maybe 15 minutes after we spoke and she said, 'Gladys, my husband just passed away.'"
"I saw him when he was alive yesterday around 1 o'clock in the afternoon. After we come back from church, another neighbor told me what happened. I was like in shock. In this block we never see something like that. I have no words. It's really sad. It's really sad," another friend said.
Neighbors told Layton they are absolutely stunned that something like this could happen and that it would all be caught on video.
Garces was arrested and charged with manslaughter, police said.
