A landscaper was stabbed and injured while cutting down a tree in a Queens backyard, police said.
The victim, part of a larger landscaping crew called to cut down the 40-foot tree at a home on Simonson Street in Elmhurst on Tuesday morning, had just started working at the home when an angry next-door neighbor attacked, according to police.
Authorities said that the 33-year-old man was taken to the hospital after the stabbing and is expected to survive a stab wound to the back.
The neighbor and one of his family were both arrested on assault charges at the scene.
Aida Simoes, the woman who hired the landscaping company, said she felt terrible about the violence.
She said she didn’t know what led to the angry confrontation and only wanted her tree cut down and turned into mulch.
“Oh my god,” she cried in Spanish.
Local
She added, “I don’t understand.”
