Stabbing victim's mother says my son was a good Samaritan

BY MATTHEW LYSIAK AND TINA MOORE
DAILY NEWS WRITERS

Monday, January 14th 2008, 7:05 PM

Dyanne Byas, mother of Floronza Byas, who was stabbed to death in a subway mugging, said her son was trying to come to conductor's aid as she's comforted by her other son, Jiovanni.
The mother of a man stabbed to death in Harlem while apparently helping a mugging victim wants the world to know her son was a good Samaritan who always tried to help others.

"I'm here today because I wanted people to know the real side," Dyanne Byas said Monday in Brooklyn. "He was a man who was living the American dream and he was helping people in need. I'm not angry."

Her 28-year-old son, Flonarza Byas, was killed in the melee that ensued when three men attacked Maurice Parks, 39, as he headed home from his job as a subway conductor just before midnight Thursday.

"He saw a person in need and went to help," Byas said. "I have no bad feelings toward Parks. In such a frenzy, we do things."

She traveled to the city from upstate to deliver the message because of press reports suggesting her son might have been involved in the attack on Parks.

"That's not in his character," she said. "That's not how I raised him and I knew that was wrong," she said.

Cops said 15-year-old and two men attacked Parks from behind as he walked near 139th St. and St. Nicholas Ave., hitting him on the side of the head with an unknown object. Parks was knocked to the ground and the attackers, at least one of whom had a knife, tried to snatch his bag.

Parks, a martial arts expert, pulled out his knife and fought back. Cops believe he might have accidentally killed Byas, mistaking him for an assailant.

The Manhattan district attorney's office has not said if Parks would be charged. A medical examiner's report is pending.

The 15-year-old attacker and 21-year-old Hector Cruz, who was stabbed in the stomach, were arrested and charged. A third man, 18-year-old Edwin Bonilla, of W. 141st St., was arraigned on robbery and other charges this morning, officials said.

Parks, who is recovering from stab wounds at Harlem Hospital, took the NYPD exam four times and was disqualified. Cops wouldn't say why. The most recent year was 1994, the same year he shot and wounded a mugger in Queens.