The NYPD detective who survived a robbery in which two illegal immigrants allegedly stabbed him 10 times in the Bronx thanked his colleagues, paramedics and others involved in saving his life after her fought of 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.”
Jose Mercedes, a 33-year-old detective with 10 years on the job, was off-duty and cleaning the trunk of his personal vehicle when two men attacked him from behind, the NYPD said previously. Despite his injuries, he chased after them before they sped away on an e-bike.
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Mercedes said he was on vacation, not working, when he went through a “very scary time.”
The suspects, identified as D’Angelo Caraballo, 25, and Sneider Mejia, 24, 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.
Mercedes said he told his attackers that he was a police officer and “they didn’t care.”
“I told them in English, I told them in Spanish that I was a police officer,” he said. “They didn’t care.”
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.”
