Nicaraguan diplomat dead in Fordham

Fordham residents and media gathered in front of 2070 Grand Concourse. Photo: Amara Grautski

Fordham residents and media gathered in front of 2070 Grand Concourse. Photo: Amara Grautski

Residents of 2070 Grand Concourse arrived home Thursday afternoon to a scrum of police requesting identification, and a stream of anxious parents negotiating their way under the yellow police tape to pick up their children from day care inside.

Inside, until late into the evening, lay the body of a Nicaraguan diplomat near the front door of his sixth floor apartment, his throat sliced open and stab wounds in the abdomen, with a knife by his side.

According to published reports, Cesar Mercado, 34, who had lived in the building for four years, was discovered by his driver around 10:30 a.m. near his front door, covered in blood. Mercado, who had been working as a consul for the Nicaraguan embassy in New York for eight years, was expected to attend the United Nations General Assembly meeting yesterday.

Neighbors described Mercado as a quiet man, who kept to himself.

“He’s very kind,” said Veronica Castro, who has lived on the same floor as Mercado for a year. “Yesterday, he came up with us on the stairs, I mean on the elevator, after school.”

One woman, who asked not to be identified, said that most neighbors kept to themselves in the building, so his behavior was not unusual.

“Here, almost no one talks,” she said in Spanish. “No one knows each other, no one knows anything. I don’t talk to my neighbors. Everyone rides the elevator in silence.”

Councilman Fernando Cabrera, who had been in the area on other business, pulled up to the scene at 5:30 p.m. to speak with police and community members in front of First Union Baptist Church nearby.

Councilman Fernando Cabrera talking to community members in front of the First Union Baptist Church. Photo: Amara Grautski

Councilman Fernando Cabrera talking to community members in front of the First Union Baptist Church. Photo: Amara Grautski

“When we heard the news, we were very saddened,” said Cabrera, who didn’t have any information relating to the investigation. “I just came just to make sure that the investigation is moving, it’s flowing, and that once they get accurate information, they’re able to bring it right back out.”

According to La Prensa, a Nicaraguan newspaper, the country’s foreign minister, Samuel Santos Lopez, was still in the process of contacting Mercado’s family.

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