It was just like Nicola Tanzi to hold a gate open for someone getting on the subway, a simple reflex gesture in a city filled with crazy complexities.
But not only was Tanzi, 64, a security guard with a strong religious grounding, punished for his good deed. He was allegedly beaten to death by a man bent on taking his “spirit” — who has ranted he hates churches — according to prosecutors.
David Mazariegos, 25, is accused of fatally punching and stomping Tanzi after the older man held a gate open for him at the Jay St.-MetroTech subway station in downtown Brooklyn on Tuesday afternoon.
“Someone that would hold the door open for someone else to be victimized like this is beyond an injustice,” said Rev. John Heyer, 42, a deacon at Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary & St. Stephen Roman Catholic Church in Carroll Gardens, where Tanzi was a faithful member.
“Really, it just breaks your heart. So I’m just completely heartbroken and in shock. I feel really helpless to think that, you know, how could this have been prevented?”
Tanzi, a security guard at one of the MetroTech office buildings, was a nice guy who often swapped shifts with colleagues so they could be with their families, Heyer said.
“He worked nights a lot,” Heyer said. “He would swap out with the guys because he didn’t have a wife and kids and it wasn’t a big deal what hours he worked.”
Tanzi, who lived in Bensonhurst, was on his way to work at around 3 p.m. when he crossed paths with Mazariegos. Cops said he held a gate open for the younger man, who pummeled the security guard to the ground and then kicked him in the head repeatedly.
After he was arrested, the suspect told cops that he didn’t like the way Tanzi was looking at him, and believed the guard was laughing at him, according to sources.
After punching him and kicking him in the head more than a dozen times, the attacker rifled through Tanzi’s pockets, police said.
Medics rushed the victim to New York-Presbyterian Hospital Brooklyn Methodist, where he died about 90 minutes later.
Friends said Tanzi was looking forward to retiring in a few months after he turned 65. Heyer said Tanzi was also looking forward to traveling to Mola, in Bari, Italy, where his parents were from.
“He took care of his parents until they both passed away,” Heyer said. “He always had a smile on his face, was always joking around and playing around. He was always very helpful. He was very much connected to the community of people who came from the same town his parents had immigrated from in Italy, Mola di Bari.”
Heyer said he saw Tanzi last month after Tanzi got his dates mixed up and came to the church on the wrong Sunday for a celebration.
“He came a week early, all dressed up and ready to go and then had to come back the next week,” Heyer said.
Deacon Anthony Mammoliti, 62, a pastoral associate at St. Dominic Parish in Bensonhurst, another church that Tanzi frequented, said Tanzi wanted to volunteer more after he stopped working.
“He had a few months left to go to retirement,” Mammoliti said. “Life can be short and fickle, which is why I always tell people, always be prepared. You never know when that moment comes.”
“Because even in his final act on this earth, what was it?” the deacon reflected. “He held a door open for another human being. Think about that. He left this world violently, doing an act of kindness. That, I find, is the beauty in the sorrow.”
Originally Published: October 9, 2025 at 5:15 PM EDT
