Two illegal immigrants from the Dominican Republic charged in the stabbing and robbery of an off-duty NYPD officer whom they attacked while he was cleaning out his trunk have been returned to the Big Apple after Massachusetts State Police arrested them in a basement hideout.
“I told them in English, I told them in Spanish that I was a police officer,” Detective Jose Mercedes, 33, told reporters at a news briefing earlier Tuesday. “They didn’t care.”
Speaking in Spanish, D’Angelo Caraballo, 25, told news cameras he wasn’t being fed and asked photographers to tell his mom he’s OK. He appeared to have gotten a haircut in the wake of the attack.
Sneider Mejia, 24, was escorted out a few moments later.
“I didn’t do anything,” he said, also speaking in Spanish.
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The duo is accused of ambushing the off-duty Mercedes as he was clearing out his trunk on a vacation day, stabbing him 10 times and stealing a gold necklace he said was a gift from his mother.
The detective said earlier that he underwent surgery and received more stitches than he could count.
Mercedes thanked his colleagues, paramedics and others involved in saving his life after he fought off the attackers, speaking publicly for the first time since checking out of Jacobi Medical Center.
“I want to thank the 52 [precinct] NYPD officers that responded and just gave me my aid and helped me in this difficult time that I was going through where I, I almost died,” he told reporters. “And then the NYPD, [Emergency Services Unit]. They just demonstrated their calmness and their professionalism …in rendering aid to me and applying tourniquets to both of my arms and then inspecting my body for further injuries.”
Mercedes, who has served with the NYPD for 10 years, chased after them before they sped away on an e-bike.
Mercedes said he was on vacation, not working, when he went through a “very scary time.”
The suspects allegedly fled to Massachusetts, where they were later arrested in a basement hideout. They are being held without bail and are expected to face attempted murder charges once extradited to New York.
Both are illegal immigrants from the Dominican Republic with criminal records, Fox News Digital reported previously.
Mercedes, who is also of Dominican descent, was asked if he was concerned that people would use his case to push a deportation agenda.
“I dedicate my life to investigating crime, and I think that it’s very important to keep our community safe for all of us,” he said.
“These perpetrators, they’re illegal, their prior crimes, I’m calling out they need to do 25 years to life,” said Scott Munro, the president of the Detectives Endowment Association. “They stabbed an NYPD detective. They didn’t know at first. He told them over and over, I’m a police officer. I’m a New York City detective. And he continued to get stabbed.”
Mercedes had chased his attackers for multiple blocks before they got away, Munro said. Then a group of good Samaritans helped him.
Caraballo had been arrested in December 2024 and released before Immigration and Customs Enforcement could lodge a detainer request.
As Mercedes recovers from his injuries, the city is reeling from an unrelated ICE-involved shooting that critics say could have been avoided if local leaders abandoned sanctuary policies in favor of public safety.
“The politicians are the ones who want to come up with these ridiculous laws because they are trying to just, you know, make their base happy,” said Vincent Vallelong, the president of the NYPD’s Sergeants Benevolent Association. “They’re putting people in harm’s way.”
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Oscar Belgal, a 28-year-old Dominican national with a prior robbery arrest and pending drug charges in New York, is recovering from a gunshot wound to the neck after allegedly attempting to flee ICE agents and accelerating toward federal vehicles used to block his way, according to authorities.
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Belgal survived, and a 5-year-old child in his vehicle was OK.
Although the NYPD had no involvement in that case, critics seized the incident to demand cuts to a special unit trained for crowd control, parade security and other special operations, Vallelong said.
“Calls were made to disband the Strategic Response Group even though they were in no way involved in the incident or its aftermath,” he said. “Darializa Avila Chevalier, the unhinged Democrat Socialist Congressional nominee, ranted that NYPD personnel trying to keep order at the hospital where the criminal was being treated were ‘escalating’ the situation by trying to contain rampaging protestors.”
