NEW YORK _ A funeral at a Brooklyn mosque erupted into a bloody melee after a FedEx worker hit a mourner with his truck Monday, police said.
The mayhem began about 12:40 p.m. when a FedEx truck at Sixth Avenue and 63rd Street in Sunset Park backed up into a 46-year-old man who had been at a funeral at the Beit El-Maqdis Islamic Center of Bay Ridge.
The man suffered minor injuries, but the incident sparked angry words between other mourners and two FedEx employees.
Naim Jawad, a mosque board member, said it appeared the driver had "road rage," apparently because the 70 to 100 people exiting the mosque prevented him from driving off the block.
"The gentleman lay on the floor because he couldn't move until the ambulance came," Jawad said. "I don't think they knew they hit the guy or not until our guys stopped them."
The sight of the mourner on the ground, Jawad said, angered witnesses.
"They tried to hold the FedEx truck so it doesn't go anywhere," he said. "Somehow, words were exchanged and then physical contact.
"They started swinging and punching each other."
In the ensuing melee, the truck's side windows were smashed, Jawad said.
The driver, Andrew Blunt, 25, slashed a 46-year-old man on the hand with a box cutter _ and Blunt's co-worker, Omar Lindsay, also 25, slammed a 52-year-old man in the head with a fire extinguisher.
One of the FedEx workers was assaulted in the fracas by Abdel Hamid Quadus, the 23-year-old nephew of the man being mourned.
He and the FedEx workers were busted.
A third FedEx worker ran off, Jawad said.
Quadus was charged with misdemeanor assault and the FedEx workers were charged with felony assault.
Lindsay's grandmother, Valerie Walker, said she was baffled by news of the brawl.
"We haven't gotten a call from him, we haven't heard anything. He just went to work this morning and that's it," she told the New York Daily News. "He doesn't do things like that."
Lindsay only started working for FedEx recently, Walker said.
The injured were treated at NYU Langone Hospital-Brooklyn.
FedEx in a statement called the incident "disturbing" and said it is "cooperating with investigating authorities to determine the facts."
