Store employee charged after deadly altercation inside NJ 7-Eleven, prosecutors say
NEW BRUNSWICK, New Jersey -- A 7-Eleven store worker has been charged with manslaughter after an altercation in New Brunswick on Tuesday, prosecutors said.
Police were called to a 7-Eleven store on George Street at 1:40 a.m.
When police arrived, they found Markeem Moore, 44, who was unresponsive.
He was taken to Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
Police determined a physical altercation had happened between Moore and a store employee, 29-year-old Taiwan Sanders-Boyd.
He was arrested and charged with second-degree reckless manslaughter.
The prosecutor's office said Sanders-Boyd and Moore did not know each other.
Friends of the victim said Moore had health issues.
"Markeem was a good kid, he was very humble, he wasn't a trouble maker and the crazy part about it I just can't see someone doing they way they did it," a friend said.
Sanders-Boyd had a court appearance on Wednesday, where a judge outlined allegations saying Sanders-Boyd struck the victim multiple times and knocked him down twice.
Moore's friends said the attack was vicious and unnecessary.
"If you're an employee at that store, you handle it better than that. You handle the situation better than that. You pull the guy to the side and say whatever you got to tell him. You don't fight the guy," another friend, Nikai, said.
People who know Moore expressed their condolences to the family and said the 44-year-old did not deserve to be allegedly beaten to death.
"I was seeing him every other day down by the store and we were talking all the time and he was no troublemaker," Kim said.
Police are investigating what led to the attack and if any words were exchanged.
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