A Bronx man with a history of violence was arrested yesterday morning after he fatally stabbed his girlfriend on an apartment building terrace in front of neighbors and the police. Frederick Mendes, 53, who was taken into custody after a tense standoff in which he tried to throw his ex, Terenace Williams, 57, from a third floor terrace, was shot by the police and stabbed Williams repeatedly in public before trying to commit suicide by cop inside her apartment.
Police arrived at Williams' Bronx apartment yesterday as the couple argued loudly outside. Reportedly Mendes, a construction worker, was upset because Williams would not have sex with her. When the police got on the scene Mendes reportedly lost it and stabbed Williams "like a piece of pork" before being shot three times in the stomach and hip by a police officer. "It wasn't that bad, but when the cops came something snapped, so he just started stabbing her. He didn't care," a neighbor said. After screaming in pain Mendes reportedly let go of Williams and crawled back into the apartment where he held a three-hour stand-off with the police in which he held a knife to his neck and drank a bottle of Henessey.
"Why don't you guys kill me? I want you guys to kill me," he said, according to police. But they didn't. Instead Mendes eventually became desperate for a smoke and traded his knife for a Parliament and was promptly arrested. Meanwhile Williams was taken to Jacobi Medical Center where she died.
Charges against Mendes are pending, but he already has 22 prior arrests, including an assault against Williams in September and an arrest for murder in 1996 that prosecutors declined to pursue. According to the News Mendes choked Williams in a car on Monday night, but fled the scene before the police arrived. Williams called the cops again hours later because she thought Mendes was in her apartment, but police could not find him. Neighbors tell the paper he spent the night before the rampage sleeping on the street between two cars.
