BY ALEXI FRIEDMAN AND JONATHAN SCHUPPE
Star-Ledger Staff

Uriel Ocasio and José Rivera weren't men you'd want to fight. Both were longtime bouncers at Newark bars. Rivera was a kickboxer and former soldier. Ocasio stood about 6 feet and weighed more than 250 pounds.

But early yesterday morning, as the two good friends left a Wilson Avenue diner in the Ironbound, they were confronted by a couple of unruly men they'd barred from a Christmas party in the neighborhood a short time earlier.

There was yelling, and then a tussle. And then one of the men pulled a gun.

Yesterday, Ocasio awoke at University Hospital to learn his friend had been shot dead in the chest.

"He's distraught," said Councilman Donald M. Payne, for whom Ocasio works as an aide. "He's blaming himself ... saying in his sleep, mouthing the words, 'Too slow, I was too slow.'"

READ MORE: http://www.nj.com/news/ledger/jersey/index.ssf?/base/news-9/1198733737263940.xml&coll=1

---