2 people have been arrested in a fatal attack on a sleeping homeless man in a New York parking lot

NEW YORK – Two men were arrested Friday on involuntary manslaughter charges after the beating death of a homeless man who was attacked while sleeping in a Brooklyn supermarket parking lot, police said.

The suspects were awaiting arraignment and it was not clear whether they had lawyers who could comment on the allegations.

Police said Cos Jervis Jonas Ajpuac, 38, and another man were beaten with metal pipes and a baseball bat around 7 p.m. on Sept. 18, police said. Ajpuac died from his injuries on October 2nd. The other man, a 42-year-old, survived.

The attackers “simply attacked them while they were sleeping,” store security guard Stephen DeGrasse told the Daily News, saying he had seen security footage of the beating.

He said the victims and the suspects all visited the same ShopRite supermarket to redeem the five-cent deposits they collected on bottles and cans.

They were friends, he said, and would drink beer together after redeeming the bottles.

There was no immediate information from police about what sparked the attack.