NYC bodega worker fatally shot in head over refusal to give away Black & Mild cigar, mother says

A 37-year-old New York City bodega worker was shot and killed on a Brooklyn street Monday because he refused to give a man a free cigar, his mother said. 

The victim, Nazim Berry, was shot in the head around 4:15 p.m. on Franklin Avenue near the Botanical Garden and Brooklyn Museum, the New York Police Department said. 

He was taken to Kings County Hospital Center, where he was pronounced dead, police said. 

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The suspect fled and no arrests have been made, the NYPD said. 

At the scene, Berry’s mother told reporters that someone asked her son to buy them a Black & Mild cigar. When he refused, the pair began to argue, she said. 

“The whole attitude was they couldn’t accept ‘no,’” she said. 

“So from what I hear, they went and got a gun and came back. And when the guy went to draw the gun, Nazim saw it and they had a tussle over it.” she added. “And you know, when you bend down you’re tussling and the guy pointed the gun right to the side of his head and shot him.”

Berry, who lived in the neighborhood with his grandmother, had worked in the bodega for several years, his mother said. 

He was never in trouble, she said. 

“I knew it was senseless,” she recalled thinking when she heard about the fatal shooting. “I knew that it had to be over something stupid because I know his heart.”

She said Berry had previously complained about people asking him for things for free at work.