Fatal Engagement Party Fight Was Like "WWF Royal Rumble"

Early Saturday morning, a Staten Island man was fatally stabbed outside of a restaurant where he and his high school sweetheart had been celebrating their recent engagement. Police are still searching for the suspect—believed to be a kitchen worker at España Restaurant—who stabbed 27-year-old Antonio Lacertosa, but more details have emerged about the fight which precipitated the death. One police source described surveillance video of the fight to SILive: “The video was like a WWF Royal Rumble...People were being tossed on top of cars; it was crazy.” And other witnesses claim that the restaurant's manager had tried to shoot them, which is when Lacertosa intervened to stop him: "He went to pull the trigger again, and that’s when Anthony saved my life. Anthony attacked him.”

Lacertosa, fiancee Bridgette Schneider, his brothers and their friends had been out celebrating the engagement Friday evening; they ended up at España's for celebratory drinks around midnight. Two of the brothers were allegedly kicked out (possibly for drunkness), and they then urinated on the side of the restaurant. That's when the manager and an associate spotted and confronted them: “He pulled a gun on us out of nowhere,” Lacertosa's friend Jonathan Mizzi told the Post, referring to manager Ridi Zeneli.

“He pulled the trigger, and the gun jammed," Mizzie continued. “He went to cock it back again, and a bullet dropped out of the top. He went to pull the trigger again, and that’s when Anthony saved my life. Anthony attacked him.” At that point, the manager's associate had grabbed a butcher knife from the kitchen, and he allegedly stabbed Lacertosa. While police are still looking for the alleged stabber—who they have identified now—Zeneli willingly turned himself in to police for questioning on Saturday. A friend of his told the Post, “This is out of character of him. It either had to be an act of self-defense or an accident. He’s normally a nice, calm guy.”

Lacertosa's brother Joseph told SILive why Schneider and her brother chose to take their party to España's Friday evening: “There were other options that night. They believed it was a calmer place.” Moe Elgaly, owner of nearby M&M Bagel Shop, told CBS: “We’re used to fights, but nothing like this. It was chaos.”