NEW YORK — Just before dawn Sunday, outside a hookah bar in Queens, a brutal fight broke out over a prosaic urban commodity: a parking space.

The fight turned deadly when one of the men involved stabbed two others, then, moments later, drove his car onto the sidewalk and plowed into a crowd that was tending to his victims, police said. One man was killed, and six people were injured. Among them were the stabbing victims and others who had bones broken by the car.

David Barrere, an assistant chief of the New York Police Department, explained what happened at a news conference at the scene Sunday afternoon. Nearby, glass and blood strewed the road, not 15 metres from where the body of the man who was killed had lain for hours under a white tarp Sunday morning before emergency crews took him away. Police identified the man as Richardo Chattergoon, 23.

The fight began at 4:30 a.m. on Liberty Avenue, outside XS NYC, between a man in a white Hyundai sedan and two others in a BMW, according to police. Officials did not provide further detail on how the fight started. As the argument grew heated, all three stepped out of their cars. The man in the Hyundai took out a knife and plunged it into the torsos of the other men, then got back in his car and drove partway down the street, police said.

A group of people who had seen the attack came to the aid of the two wounded men, and they began to help the pair down Liberty Avenue. In an instant, police said, the white Hyundai returned, mounting the sidewalk at 128th St., and plowing into the group.

Six people were hit. Chattergoon was crushed and died at the scene, according to police. A 29-year-old man who had also been stabbed was in critical condition, police said. Four others, three men and one woman, were injured by the car. All were taken to Jamaica Medical Center for injuries that included a broken pelvis and a broken leg.

The other stabbing victim, a 28-year-old man, was also being treated in Jamaica Hospital, and was expected to survive.

Police arrested the person they believe is responsible, Barrere said: A half-hour after the attack, a man showed up at the same emergency room as the victims with a laceration to his hand, and he was quickly identified as the man from the white Hyundai. He is in custody, police said; charges are pending, and his name has not yet been released.

On Sunday morning, the BMW sat in a parking spot on Liberty Ave., the street spattered in blood. An older man and woman stood beside the police cordon holding each other as they sobbed. Not far from them, the covered body of Chattergoon still lay on the sidewalk, surrounded by shards. The woman began to scream.

On Sunday evening, Chattergoon’s family gathered inside their two-storey home in Queens. A relative came outside to say that the family had nothing to say to reporters, except that they were “grieving.”