Police say it happened in the West Brighton section just after 7:30 p.m. Tuesday.
Jennira Roundtree was stabbed and slashed in the fight involving about 20 women near the complex on Henderson Avenue.
She was stabbed in the chest and slashed in the stomach before being taken to Richmond University Medical Center where she was pronounced dead.
The courtyard at the West Brighton Houses is where Roundtree harnessed her own personal resources and devoted countless hours on the grill.
Her friends, who did not want to be identified, spoke out about Roundtree on Wednesday.
"Always walking around with a smile, always thinking about, oh how could we get some money together to barbeque for these kids so they're not out in the streets for the summer, let's hold a barbecue every weekend," the victim's friend said.
Her open-to-all barbeques made her a legend, and it was that same safe space she created for everyone else where she lost her life to violence.
"An argument, I don't know about what, but she was being a mom, a momma bear," another friend said.
The friend said Roundtree rushed downstairs to help after learning one of her four children was in the middle of a large crowd of 20 women engaged in a dispute. They said one NYPD patrol car was already on the scene when Roundtree was stabbed.
"And by the time the rest of them came she had collapsed on the floor," the friend said.
After the stabbing, the witness said the entire crowd took off running.
"You just sit there and you just let it happen and you don't act. You just left her kids without a mother, you could have done more," Roundtree's friend said.
Investigators were able to recover a knife at the scene.
So far, no arrests have been made and the investigation is ongoing.
"This neighborhood was important to her because she wanted different for all the kids coming up. And she was trying to make a difference, and she was," her friend said.
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