Metro

NYC man hit with murder charge for brutal New Year’s Day stabbing – Big Apple’s first of 2024: cops

A Harlem man was arrested Saturday and charged in a brutal New Year’s Day stabbing outside a Queens bar — the Big Apple’s first murder of 2024, cops said.

Torrence Holmes, of Saint Nicholas Place, was charged with manslaughter in the killing of Tsering Wangdu outside KTM Bar and Lounge in Elmhurst in the early hours of Jan. 1, according to police.

Wangdu, 29, was stabbed in the leg and died more than 12 hours after the brawl erupted outside the bar on Broadway, police said.

His 30-year-old friend was stabbed in the chest and face but survived.

The scene in the street where a man was stabbed to death and his friend was critically injured, cops said. Robert Mecea
NYPD officers walk near the scene of the Jan. 1, 2024, murder that left one man dead. Robert Mecea

The two men were kicked out of the establishment after getting into an argument with another reveler, according to law enforcement sources. It wasn’t clear what the fight was over, cops said.

Holmes was charged with manslaughter, tampering with physical evidence and criminal possession of a weapon.

He was also charged with assault, tampering and criminal possession of a weapon for assaulting the second man, whose name wasn’t released.

A man was arrested and charged with a fatal stabbing outside a bar in Queens — the first murder of 2024, cops said. Robert Mecea

Holmes has a prior arrest for assault from 2013, police sources said.

He was awaiting arraignment Saturday night.