By Karen Xia and Thomas Tracy
New York Daily News
NEW YORK CITY — An off-duty city correction officer was stabbed trying to break up a fight at a Brooklyn bar, officials said Tuesday.
Jaheem Smith, 41, had just left Angry Wade’s on Smith St. near Butler St. in Boerum Hill about 3 a.m. Saturday when he saw a barback arguing with a man and a woman.
When the argument turned physical, Smith stepped in to break it up and was stabbed in the chest and side, officials said.
The barback, 30, was also stabbed and suffered a collapsed lung, according to court records.
Smith joined the Correction Department in 2016 and is assigned to the Eric M. Taylor Center on Rikers Island.
Medics rushed both men to New York Methodist Hospital, where they were listed in stable condition.
“He’s not well enough to make a statement,” a woman who answered the door at Smith’s St. Albans home said Tuesday.
Smith is currently mending at home, Correction Department Deputy Commissioner of Public Information Peter Thorne said.
“The thoughts of our entire department are with our officer, his family, friends and colleagues,” Thorne said. “We are doing everything we can to provide him with any help and support needed as he recovers.”
Andrae Hall, 33, of Hunts Point in the Bronx, and Genesis Cano, 27, of Red Hook, Brooklyn, were arrested a few hours later and charged with assault and attempted assault.
According to court papers, Smith was across the street when he saw the couple pounding on the barback and ran over.
“(The defendants) approached (Smith) and engaged in a verbal dispute, punched (him) multiple times about the face with closed fist and got very close to (his) body,” court papers say. “(Smith) felt pain to (his) side, observed a laceration and observed blood coming from the laceration.”
A Brooklyn Criminal Court judge on Sunday ordered Hall held on $100,000 bail. Cano was ordered held on $20,000 bail.
Correction Officers’ Benevolent Association President Elias Husamudeen hailed Smith Tuesday.
“The bravery exemplified by Correction Officer Smith reaffirms why correction officers are the unsung heroes of law enforcement,” Husamudeen said. “We salute him for his bravery.”
Workers at Angry Wade’s declined to comment Tuesday.
A call to Hall’s Legal Aid attorney for comment was not immediately returned.
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