One of the brothers stabbed during a fight at a Harlem fish shop was hit with criminal charges — as the worker who allegedly injured him and killed his sibling maintained he didn’t mean to hurt anyone.
Junior Aquino Hernandez, 34, insisted the fatal stabbing was just an accident as he was led out of Manhattan’s 30th Precinct stationhouse late Wednesday after being charged with murder, assault and weapons possession.
“I’m sorry,” a glum-looking Hernandez told reporters. “I didn’t mean to hurt them.”
Hernandez, who was awaiting arraignment in Manhattan Criminal Court on Thursday, is charged with stabbing brothers Malik Burrell, 25, and Robert “Bobby” Burrell, 29, during a brawl at the Fish Express Fish Market on St. Nicholas Place around 9:45 p.m. on Tuesday.
The younger man died from his wounds, while his older brother was hospitalized in stable condition.
Cops on Wednesday night charged the hospitalized brother, Bobby Burrell, with robbery, burglary and assault for his alleged role in the brawl, the NYPD said Thursday.
Burrell, of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, has two prior arrests in the Big Apple, a felony assault rap on 2019 and a marijuana possession charge in 2016, police said.
Police said Hernandez did not have any prior arrests.
The deadly scuffle allegedly began when Hernandez confronted one of the brothers he thought was stealing shrimp from the store.
According to a high-ranking police source, the brother slugged an employee and ran out of the fish market — only to return shortly with his sibling,
The pair allegedly got into a second fight with employees at the store — which is when Hernandez allegedly pulled out a work knife and stabbed both brothers in the abdomen, killing Malik Burrell, police said.
In an interview with The Post Wednesday, the brothers’ grief-stricken father, Robert Burrell, said the boy were buying shrimp for a birthday meal for his younger son.
“I know damn well my sons aren’t stealing nothing,” he said. “They have money. They have money on their cash app and they had money in their pocket.
“It’s crazy that they say he try to steal.”