A CVS worker charged with stabbing a serial shoplifter to death during a fight inside a Midtown Manhattan store was only acting in self-defense — and is a dedicated employee who has taken on multiple jobs while battling a chronic illness, his family and friends claim.
Scotty Enoe, 46, is accused of fatally knifing 50-year-old homeless man, Charles Brito, after the alleged thief socked him in the face inside the drugstore at Broadway and West 49th Street early Thursday, cops and sources said.
“He acted in self-defense. He did what he had to do,” the employee’s mom, Lucille Enoe, 72, told The Post, adding that her son offered up his side of the story when he called her following his arrest.
The fatal scuffle broke out after Enoe had tried to stop the alleged would-be thief from trying to take off with Gatorade and a container of creamer just before 12:30 a.m., according to police and sources.
After being punched, Enoe allegedly whipped out a knife and stabbed the man in the torso. Police responded to reports of a robbery in progress, but the stabbing had already unfolded.
Enoe, of Brooklyn, was taken into custody at the scene and escorted to Mount Sinai West with contusions to the face, a source said. He was later taken to the precinct and charged with murder and criminal possession of a weapon.
CVS worker Scotty Enoe punched the homeless man in the face and allegedly stabbed him in the torso, cops and sources said.
“I would like for the charges to be dropped,” the mom said, adding the entire ordeal was making her “very, very depressed and unhappy.”
“My son is a very good person. My son never gets involved in this situation before. He’s a very dedicated worker,” she continued. “One of the people from one of the stores where he work just called me and tell me he that he knows him for a while… and that’s he’s very respectful.”
She said her son suffered from sickle cell anemia and that he didn’t have his daily meds on him.
“I’m very worried about it because without this medication he’s in a lot of pain in his joints and will end up in the hospital. I’m very worried about that,” the elder Enoe said.
“He has to take it every day.”
Asked if she thought her son’s job was dangerous, the distressed mom said: “Yes, it is.”
The fatal scuffle broke out inside the CVS store at Broadway and West 49th Street just before 12:30 a.m. Thursday. Christopher Sadowski“This guy attacked him. My brother is a good person. In a situation like that, he would defend himself,” Enoe’s sister, who didn’t give her name, told the Daily News.
The CVS employee, who emigrated from Grenada when he was 5, is a hard worker and has multiple jobs, his relatives said.
“He works two jobs and he’s never been in trouble. All he does is work. He goes from one job to the next,” his sister said.
Once in custody, the worker asked for a lawyer and wouldn’t make any statements to cops, law enforcement sources said.
The homeless man, who was pronounced dead at Bellevue Hospital, had more than a dozen previous shoplifting arrests to his name and was known to target drugstores in Upper Manhattan, according to sources.
“Maybe Scotty is the unlucky one,” the mom said when told of the homeless man’s priors.
“I’m praying for him that everything will be OK,” she continued. “They should have put this guy away somewhere a long time ago. Just keep him off, out of the street.”
The CVS fatal saga is the third apparent vigilante slay in the Big Apple in as many months.
Ex-Marine Daniel Penny was arrested – and has since pleaded not guilty to manslaughter – over Jordan Neely’s subway chokehold death on an F train on May 1.
Meanwhile, Jordan Williams – a 20-year-old straphanger – had his manslaughter charges dropped by a grand jury after he was charged with stabbing ex-con Devictor Ouedraogo to death during a melee on a Brooklyn J train on June 12.
