MARGATE, N.J. — A New York City man was arrested over Memorial Day weekend and charged with aggravated assault after a fight outside the Margate Wawa left another man with a 6-inch laceration of his face, according to police.
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Disney Abreu, 33, of New York City, was charged with second-degree aggravated assault, according to police and court records.
The incident took place around 3:30 a.m. behind the Wawa on Ventnor Avenue and involved two visitors to the Shore town, said Margate Police Capt. Joe Scullion.
“Apparently there were some words exchanged between the victim and the accused’swife,” Scullion said. “The accused then stepped in to defend his wife and made some comments to the victim. They started to fight in the back parking lot.”
The Shore town Wawa has in prior summers been dubbed “Club Wa” for its frequent, and sometimes unruly, gatherings of young people, but any of those crowds were gone when the confrontation took place, Scullion said.
The victim, who was not identified, was a 32-year-old man from Pennsylvania who was staying in Longport, he said.
“It was not like a group of kids who hang out at Wawa every weekend,“ Scullion said. ”It was more a random thing between two strangers.”
No weapon was recovered, Scullion said, when Abreu was stopped by Ventnor police and taken into custody. And none was found near the Wawa, he said.
An affidavit of probable cause obtained by the Inquirer stated that both men “sustained injuries consistent with a physical fight,” and that Abreu acknowledged that he’d been involved in the fight at the Wawa. It alleges that Abreu struck the victim “multiple times in the head and face area, causing a large laceration to the left cheek and ear.”
Scullion said that security camera footage was “grainy,” and that the incident went out of frame, so the weapon used was unclear. Abreu denied having a weapon, he said.
Scullion said the victim was found bleeding heavily in the area of his left cheek and ear, with a 6-inch cut stretching down the side of his face, consistent with a sharp-edged blade.
The victim was treated at a nearby hospital for the laceration, Scullion said.
The news site Breaking AC, which first reported the arrest, said that during a Friday hearing, Superior Court Judge Jorge Combs expressed concern about the violence during a busy holiday weekend in a holiday town and noted that Abreu was on probation from an earlier New York arrest. He was sent to the Atlantic County Justice Facility, where he remained, Breaking AC reported.
His attorney, Holly Bitters, could not be reached for comment. Breaking AC reported that Abreu was on vacation with his wife and children and had run into the Wawa. He was trying to de-escalate the situation outside between his wife and the other man when he was punched, she told the judge.