What to Know
- Two FedEx workers and a third man are in police custody for a brawl in Brooklyn captured on video
- It happened after a funeral service outside a mosque in Sunset Park, when the truck accidentally hit a mourner Monday afternoon
- That sparked a brawl between the crowd of mourners and the workers
Chaos erupted outside a funeral service in Brooklyn Monday afternoon when a pair of FedEx delivery workers got into a brawl with a large group of mourners, police say, resulting in injuries and arrests.
Police say a funeral had just ended at the Beit-El Maqdis Islamic Center in Sunset Park, and mourners flooded the street to get into their cars. At the same time, a FedEx truck was making its way down Sixth Avenue and was backing up by 63rd street when the truck hit a 46-year-old mourner, police said.
When the FedEx workers got out of the truck to see what happened, one of them was punched in the head by a 23-year-old man, according to police. The other FedEx driver took a fire extinguisher from the truck and smacked the original attacker with it.
"They tried to hold the FedEx truck so it doesn't go anywhere," a witness said. "Somehow words were exchanged, and then physical contact, and they started swinging and punching each other."
A representative for the mosque told reporters, "As professionals, all they had to do was close their doors, sit in their car and wait till the police arrived."
Police said the FedEx driver who had been punched pulled out a boxcutter and slashed a 56-year-old funeral-goer in the hand.
When police arrived, they found the truck with smashed windows -- and a he-said, she-said about how the violent confrontation really started.
Three people were taken to NYU Langone Hospital in Brooklyn with minor injuries: the 46-year-old pedestrian, the 23-year-old man hit in the face with the fire extinguisher and the 56-year-old man slashed in the hand.
Local
The 23-year-old injured man is also in police custody for throwing that first punch, along with the two FedEx workers, both 25 years old, police said.
FedEx said in a statement to News 4, "We are aware of preliminary reports regarding this disturbing incident and are cooperating with investigating authorities to determine the facts."
