An off-duty NYPD detective stabbed 10 times still chased his attackers barefoot for two blocks, and prosecutors say the suspects were illegal immigrants repeatedly freed under sanctuary rules.
Detective Jose Mercedes, a 10-year veteran, was unloading items from his car in the Bronx on Oct. 2 when two men on a moped demanded his chain. A scuffle followed. One of them stabbed him repeatedly. Mercedes kept identifying himself as a police officer and still went after them.
Prosecutors told a Bronx court the detective was stabbed 10 times, lost massive amounts of blood, and required surgery. More than two weeks later he still could not use his left hand. The two men charged in the attack, D’Angelo Caraballo and Sneinder Mejia, were arraigned Wednesday on a 13-count indictment that includes attempted murder, aggravated assault on a police officer, robbery, grand larceny, and criminal possession of a weapon. Judge Alvin Yearwood ordered them held without bail.
Bronx Assistant District Attorney Paul Irace laid out the sequence in court. He said Mercedes identified himself as an officer again and again while the attack was underway.
"When defendant Mejia was stabbing him numerous times, Mercedes attempted to place him under arrest."
Irace added that the detective “identified himself several times, over six times, as a police officer,” and that Mercedes “used his training to stop this from happening.” The detective then chased the pair for two blocks while barefoot, even as he bled. The attackers wore Halloween masks and fled the state.
US Marshals later tracked Caraballo and Mejia to a basement recording studio in Massachusetts and brought them back to New York to face the charges. A half-dozen NYPD detectives packed the courtroom for the arraignment.
Earlier this week Mercedes described the assault at a press conference. He said he nearly lost his life and that language made no difference to the men who stabbed him.
"I almost died."
He was direct about what he told them:
"I told them in English, I told them in Spanish that I was a police officer. They didn’t care."
Irace updated the court on the detective’s condition at the arraignment.
"As we sit here today, more than two weeks later, he still does not have usage of his left hand and is recovering from that surgery."
The indictment and the no-bail order closed one chapter. The background of the two defendants opened another. Both men are described as illegal immigrants who entered the United States from the Dominican Republic. Both had rap sheets. And both, according to the court account, had been repeatedly released without bail because New York’s sanctuary policies required local authorities to ignore federal immigration holds.
That pattern is familiar to New Yorkers watching wanted suspects in off-duty NYPD detective stabbing cases tied to prior releases and open-border enforcement fights. Immigration and Customs Enforcement did not immediately respond to questions about the pair’s current status.
The Oct. 2 attack started as a street robbery. Two men on a two-wheeler targeted a chain. It became a near-fatal assault on an identified police officer. Mercedes did not go down. He named himself as a cop more than six times, tried to arrest the man stabbing him, and then ran after the pair on bare feet while bleeding heavily.
City and state leaders have spent years defending policies that limit cooperation with federal immigration authorities. Those rules kept men with records on the street until the night they put a knife into a detective unloading his car. The same political climate now shows up in fights over who runs the NYPD and how far City Hall will go to push back against federal agents, including moments when socialists demand Mamdani fire NYPD leadership and drive out ICE.
Taxpayers fund the department that trains officers like Mercedes. Taxpayers also live with the results when repeat offenders are cut loose. The detective’s left hand still does not work. The men charged with trying to kill him are finally held without bail, after a manhunt that reached into Massachusetts.
Public patience has limits. Crowds have already made that plain when officials appear at police events, including the night a Staten Island crowd booed Mayor Mamdani off stage at an NYPD celebration. Officers notice who stands with them after a colleague is carved up on a Bronx street.
The Mercedes stabbing is a local prosecution with national stakes. An off-duty detective is stabbed during an attempted robbery. He identifies himself repeatedly. The attackers keep going. They flee across state lines. Federal marshals find them. Bronx prosecutors secure a multi-count indictment and a no-bail hold.
At the same time, New York remains a flashpoint over immigration custody and street crime. Separate Bronx controversies have already drawn national figures into the fray, including when Ocasio-Cortez demanded a probe of a Bronx ICE shooting and faulted a retailer for assisting agents. The through-line is simple: when local rules block immigration detainers, violent offenders get more chances. Front-line cops pay the bill.
Caraballo and Mejia now face attempted murder and assault-on-an-officer counts. Mercedes is still recovering from surgery. The facts entered in court do not blur. A detective said he was police. The men with the knife did not stop. Sanctuary practice had already given them prior releases. The chase barefoot for two blocks is what accountability looked like when the system would not supply it in advance.
Law-and-order voters do not need a lecture. They need fewer revolving doors and more consequences before the next off-duty cop is left bleeding beside his car.
When illegal immigrants with records are freed by design, the next detective is left to chase them barefoot, and the public is left to clean up the failure.
