Brooklyn Bodega Owner Slashed After Refusing to Make Illegal Alcohol Sale

The bodega owner was taken to the hospital and released, and returned Friday to the scene of the incident

Police are searching for a man seen on surveillance video slashing a Brooklyn bodega owner in the face when he reportedly wouldn't let him buy alcohol with food stamps.

The attacker entered Express Deli on Broadway in Bushwick Thursday and tried using food stamps to buy a 22-ounce bottle of Colt 45 for a teenage girl waiting outside, who was denied the sale at the deli earlier, according to the store’s owner, Mutahar Murshed, 34. 

Murshed said he saw the girl give money to the assailant outside.

The man kept the cash, according to Murshed, and then tried to purchase the beer with food stamps, which is illegal.

Murshed told the man he couldn't make the sale. 

"Six years," he says he told the man, referring to the possible jail time he could see for allowing an alcohol purchase made with food stamps.

The attacker tried to intimidate Mutahar by threatening him -- and doing push-ups. It didn't pursaude him to make the sale.

“He said, 'Listen, don't make me mad.' I said, 'So what?'" according to Murshed. "He said, 'You don't know me.'"

 The attacker then pulled a box cutter from his pants pocket and slashed Murshed in the cheek.

He was taken to Kings County Hospital, where he was treated and released.

Murshed, who supports his wife and son back home in Yemen, said the doctor told him he had "good luck" by getting slashed in the cheek. If the suspect had slashed his neck -- only a few inches down -- he may have lost his sight, or ability to speak, he explained.

The bodega slasher is still on the run, and is described as having short black hair and brown eyes, between the ages of 25 and 30 years old. He was last seen wearing black jeans, a white t-shirt and carrying a black backpack, police said. A surveillance video still of the slasher is below:

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