Family of man killed in Times Square attack sparked by TikTok trend rejects self-defense claim 68%
By Emma Seiwell55% Julian Roberts-Grmela0%
5/8/2026, 8:40:37 PM
BS Summary: This article contains 26 faulty reasoning types, including Negativity Bias, Confirmation Bias, and Appeal to Emotion, with Appeal to Authority as the most egregious example at 28.1% saturation with 181 hits. Analysis detected 1,436 faulty-reasoning hits from 645 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 62% and a BS Rank of 68% (5,433 of 16,813 articles). This article is worse (more manipulative) than 67.70% of the article peer group.
The family of a man killed in Times Square by a 17-year-old boy accused of waking him from sleep as part of a viral TikTok trend before plunging a knife into his chest wholly rejected the suspect’s claims that it was “self-defense.”
“It would be self-defense if he was attacking him or something but he was f*cking sleeping.” said victim Leonides Baez’ male relative, who wished to remain anonymous.
Baez’ younger sister, who said she viewed surveillance footage of the slaying obtained by detectives, said her sibling was not the aggressor “whatsoever.”
“It’s a lie.
It was clearly not self-defense.
It was just three punks that messed with my brother,” said the 36-year-old sister, who declined to share her name.
“It’s ridiculous.
They were bored.
These dumb little kids were freaking bored.
They didn’t have nothing [better to do.]”
Baez, 39, was sleeping on the sidewalk outside of Burger & Lobster restaurant on W. 43rd St. near Seventh Ave.
Monday night when the teen suspect and two friends woke him up and began harassing him, at one point urinating in a cup and throwing it on the victim, according to prosecutors citing surveillance footage.
The footage shows the teen suspect drawing a knife from his vest pocket and chasing the victim into a breezeway, where he stabbed him in the chest, according to court documents.
The suspect, who was swiftly arrested on Thursday, shouted at reporters as he awaited arraignment in Manhattan Criminal Court, saying, “It was self-defense, p—y!
Suck my d–k!
… It was self-defense!”
He then told the Daily News, “He punched me first — so I stabbed him,” he continued.
“He’s a grown man beating up on kids.”
The teen, whose name was not released by the NYPD because he’s a minor, admitted to detectives that he zeroed in on Baez because he was following a “mess-with-a-crack-head” trend on TikTok, a police source said.
Baez’ younger sister said he was “not a crack head” but a “fully functional”, free-spirited wanderer who was homeless by choice.
“You had so much life ahead of you and you chose the street life, thinking everything is just a game because you’re just showing off or you’re following whatever trend he was following,” the sister said of the suspect.
“But look what you just did.
You just threw your whole life away and you might not see the light of day again.”
The teen suspect was also charged Thursday in a string of violent robberies and slashings targeting retailers in Midtown.
In one case, the victim told police he confronted the teen and three of his friends after they began looting his souvenir shop on W. 40th St. near Seventh Ave. around 9:35 p.m. on April 7, court documents show.
“I’m gonna cut your face,” the teen allegedly screamed, before cutting the merchant’s right hand and fleeing the store.
And on May 3 — the day before he allegedly killed Baez — the suspect and three other teens pilfered a Seventh Ave. newsstand near W. 54th St. in Midtown around 3 a.m., according to a complaint.
A kiosk worker, who declined to give his name, told the News on Friday that one suspect pulled a knife.
“I see the knife, they take money,” he said.
“Open the door, the knife, just take money.”
Police said the teens broke a glass window, and the suspect snatched $300 from the kiosk’s operator.
The teen then got into a fight involving several people on the sidewalk before slashing a man in the chest, court documents show.
The teen suspect was ordered held without bail after pleading not guilty at his arraignment on Thursday.
When asked what she hopes will happen to the suspect, Baez’ sister said: “Rot in hell.
No pity, nothing.
Rot in hell.”
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