Brute Accused of Killing NYC Dad With Random Knockout Punch in 2017 Charged With Manslaughter, Cops Say

By Lucas

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Brute Accused of Killing NYC Dad With Random Knockout Punch in 2017 Charged With Manslaughter, Cops Say

The brute accused of killing a 44-year-old father with a random knockout punch while riding his bike in Brooklyn over seven years ago was arrested and charged with manslaughter on Wednesday, according to police.

Gary Anderson, 34, was also charged with criminally negligent homicide in the unprovoked June 8, 2017 Bedford-Stuyvesant attack that killed Domingo D. Tapia.

Tapia was riding on Fulton Street near the Kingston-Throop subway station around 1:30 a.m. when the bearded stranger suddenly slapped him in the face, knocking him to the ground, according to police.

Tapia, a married father of two, sustained severe head trauma and was transported to Kings County Hospital, where he was placed in a medically induced coma, according to authorities.

Anderson was arrested several weeks after the attack and charged with third-degree assault, a misdemeanor, according to cops and a criminal complaint.

In 2019, he pleaded guilty to second-degree assault, a felony, and was sentenced to three years in prison with the understanding that if the victim died, he would face additional charges, according to a Brooklyn District Attorney spokesman.

He was released on parole in May 2022, and it expired in November 2023, according to State Corrections records.

However, Tapia, who had already been in a coma for nearly seven years, died in March 2024, prompting Anderson to face upgraded charges, according to authorities.

Anderson said nothing as detectives escorted him out of the 81st Precinct and into an awaiting unmarked police car Wednesday afternoon, but was met with cheers and jeers from a group of schoolchildren who watched.

Anderson, who has at least five prior arrests, was expected to be arraigned on the new charges Wednesday evening.

The senseless attack occurred 10 days before Father’s Day, leaving Tapia’s wife, Esther Diaz, struggling to explain what had happened to their sons, who were 5 and 7 at the time.

“I don’t know how to tell my children,” Diaz told The Post, sobbing. “Father’s Day is this weekend, and their dad is not home, and I don’t know what I’m gonna do.”

Tapia arrived in the United States from Mexico 18 years prior to the attack and worked at a fruit stand on Church Avenue.

He was the family’s sole earner while his wife cared for the children over the summer, she explained.

Before Anderson was arrested, Diaz stated, “All I want is for the person to hand himself in and pay for what he did, because now my kids need a dad.”

The brazen attack occurred at the height of the disturbing and so-called “knockout game” — designed to knock strangers unconscious — across the city and country.

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