Teen sisters stabbed, one fatally, in fight outside NYC deli

March 17 (UPI) -- Two teen sisters were stabbed, one fatally, in a fight outside a New York City deli early Sunday morning, the NYPD said.

Police responded to a 911 call of an assault in progress outside of the deli Slope Natural Plus at the corner of St. Mark's Place and Fourth Avenue in the Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn around 2:20 a.m.

"Upon arrival, officers observed a 19-year-old female with a stab wound to the chest and a second 19-year-old female with a stab wound to the arm," a police spokesperson said in a news release.

The teen sisters were taken by ambulance to a local hospital, where one was pronounced dead and the other remains listed in stable condition. No arrests have yet been made and the identification of the victims is pending family notification.

The sisters were named as twins Samiya and Sanyia Spain by WABC. They were reportedly stabbed when they rebuffed the advances of a drunk man while ordering beef patties. WABC reported Samiya Spain as the victim.

The homicide came just hours after a 61-year-old man who was illegally parked outside a Shell gas station in the East Flatbush neighborhood of Brooklyn was allegedly killed by the 30-year-old operator of a tow truck after a dispute.

NYPD crime statistics, most recently recorded on March 10, show that there have been 55 murders in 2024 compared to 73 by the same point in 2023, a decrease of nearly 25%.

Transit crimes on the city's subways are up 13% from last year. But despite New York Gov. Kathy Hochul deploying 750 National Guard troops into the city's subways to combat the surge underground, most serious crimes around the city are down significantly from the days of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The number of rapes is down 8.4%, and burglaries are down 13.3%. The number of shooting victims has decreased by nearly 20% and the number of shooting incidents are down 17%.

Apart from transit crimes, the only other crimes included in the stats that are up year-over-year are robberies, up 5.4%; felony assault, up 1.8%; and misdemeanor assault, up nearly 10%. And, petit larceny is up less than a single percentage point.