Police are searching for a man who stabbed a youth soccer coach and cut off his ear before leaving him to die on a New York City sidewalk near Union Square early Sunday.
Police responded to a call of an assault on West 14th Street at about 4:30 a.m. and discovered 25-year-old Michael Jones lying in a pool of blood with stab wounds to his stomach and neck. His ear had also been cut off, police said.
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“I ran down to the ambulance (down the block) and said, ‘You’d better get down there. There’s a guy on the ground with his throat cut,’” passer-by Malachi Mohamed, 39, told the New York Post.
Jones, a native of Liverpool, England, and soccer coach for the Red Bulls Youth Training Programs, was pronounced dead at Bellevue Hospital. He lived in West Harrison in Westchester County.
“He coached two of my three sons and was just a great guy. He cared about what he did, and was very dedicated,” Mark Fischer, who oversees refs for the Westchester league, told the Post. “The kids loved him.”
Police released surveillance video of the male suspect believed to have stabbed Jones as they canvassed the neighborhood looking for potential witnesses. Jones' attacker was described as a man between the ages of 25 and 30 with a dark ponytail.
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The New York Red Bulls issued a statement calling Jones a "fantastic coach who loved soccer."
Police sources said that robbery did not appear to be the motive. The investigation is ongoing.
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