A Brooklyn mother was fatally stabbed at a park barbecue by a man who couldn’t accept her rejection, police said.
Shakeema Davis, 30, was killed inside Lincoln Terrace–Arthur S. Somers Park at Rochester Avenue and Eastern Parkway in Crown Heights around 12:41 a.m. Tuesday, according to the NYPD. The attack unfolded during a gathering that Davis herself had organized, and her young son, 7, was among the 15 to 20 people present when she died.
NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny told reporters that the man called Davis to find out where the party was happening before showing up uninvited to the location. “Throughout the course of the evening, everybody’s hanging out, drinking, smoking, listening to music,” Kenny said. “Our eventual stabber keeps soliciting her – our victim – for sex. She keeps saying no. They’re arguing. It’s verbal. It turns physical.”
The chief continued: “After she throws a drink on him, he begins to assault her. She actually picks up the barbecue in an attempt to get him away from her and strikes him with the barbecue. Once he’s struck with the barbecue, he pulls out a knife and stabs her three times, causing her death.”
Davis was rushed to Brookdale Hospital Medical Center, where she succumbed to her injuries.
Investigators have identified a strong person of interest as well as the car he used to flee, but have not yet reached probable cause to arrest him, Kenny said. “We believe the stabber and the victim did have a prior relationship, which is why he was invited to the party, which is why he was consistently basically annoying her for sex,” the chief added.
But Davis’ mother, Adra Pegues, 60, told the Daily News the two only went on one date – and her daughter wanted nothing more to do with him. “He wasn’t her type. Some people won’t take no for an answer,” Pegues said. “She went out on a date and felt, ‘Oh no, not that one.'”
The grieving mother did not hold back her contempt for the killer. “I don’t have the words for him,” Pegues told the paper. “He was a coward. A weak man. People like that aren’t supposed to be on earth.”
Davis’ longtime friend Freddie told WPIX he immediately jumped into action in an attempt to save her. “I took my shirt off and tied it around her to compress her wounds,” an emotional Freddie recounted. “I tried to save her, and she took her last three breaths in my arms.”
Kenny said that between 15 and 20 people were on the scene when Davis was killed, including her young son. “We have interviewed two or three people that are telling us they saw the incident and did try to apprehend the perp and hold him for police, but the guy kept swinging the knife at the ground,” the chief said.
In the viral moment that has drawn national attention to the case, the brutal killing has become the latest flashpoint in conversations about violence against women who reject men’s advances. The circumstances – a single date, repeated unwanted sexual propositions, and a fatal attack when those advances were refused – have resonated far beyond Brooklyn.
The investigation remains active as detectives work to build a case against the identified person of interest.