Hempstead stabbing victim identified

Police Tuesday said they have identified a man fatally stabbed in a December fight at a Hempstead bar.

The victim is Plutaco Galindo, 23, of Westbury. Nassau County police said no one has been arrested in the Dec. 23 stabbing outside the El Pacifico Bar on North Franklin Street.

Police said they believe the stabbing was gang-related.

Galindo was one of two men police said were stabbed. The second victim, whose identity has not been released, suffered "nonlife-threatening" injuries.

Following the stabbing at about 2:40 a.m., police said Galindo and the other victim raced to a hospital in a car driven by a third man, but crashed into a taxicab from the El Salvador Taxi Company. Debris from the accident struck a nearby pedestrian.

Galindo died at 3:51 a.m. at Winthrop-University Hospital in Mineola, police said. Police said the accident did not contribute to Galindo's death.

The cabdriver and his passenger had nonlife-threatening injuries and the pedestrian had minor injuries, according to police.

The stabbing was being investigated by the department's gang suppression unit and homicide detectives, Nassau police homicide squad commander Det. Lt. John Azzata said after the stabbing.

The attackers thought Galindo and three friends were members of a gang known as "18th Street," which the four men denied, Azzata said. But two men were stabbed in a confrontation just outside the bar.

"They believed that the four individuals were members of a gang known as 18th Street," Azzata said, referring to members of the MS-13 gang. "As a matter of fact, while these individuals were being attacked, they were yelling at them something to do with 18th Street, and the four individuals were yelling back, 'We're not 18th Street.' "

Azzata said a man was drinking beer with three others at a bar near North Franklin and Jackson street when another accused Galindo and his friends of being members of the 18th Street gang.

The group decided to leave, "whereupon they were attacked in the front of the establishment," Azzata said. "Two of the four were stabbed. One of the four fled the scene on foot. The three remaining individuals entered a Golf Volkswagen."

The group drove two blocks south on North Franklin and turned left on Fulton Avenue, but collided with the taxi three blocks later at the intersection with Clinton Street.