Sep. 25, 2023 By Bill Parry
A Bland Houses resident was arrested and charged with murder for allegedly stabbing another Flushing man in the head during a bar fight on the night of Sunday, Sept. 24.
Police from the 109th Precinct responded to a 911 call of an assault in progress in front of Kelly’s Bar at 136-11 41st St. in downtown Flushing just before 10 p.m., when they found 45-year-old Elliot Ortiz unconscious and unresponsive with a stab wound to his head lying in front of the saloon.
EMS responded to the crime scene and rushed Ortiz to NewYork-Presbyterian Queens Hospital, where he was pronounced dead, according to the NYPD.
A second man, Jason Schuler, 39, of Roosevelt Avenue in the Bland Houses, was also transported to NewYork-Presbyterian Queens Hospital after he was found nearby at the intersection of Main Street and 41st Avenue with stab wounds to his back. He was listed in stable condition and taken into custody a short while later after investigators determined the two men stabbed each other after an argument inside the bar spilled out onto the street and quickly escalated into violence, police said.
Police sources say a knife was recovered at the crime scene.
Schuler was charged with murder and criminal possession of a weapon, according to the NYPD. The investigation remains ongoing.
The 109th Precinct had reported no homicides until Sunday night, making it the first so far in 2023, after four were reported at the same point last year, according to the NYPD’s latest CompStat report.