Detective Jose Mercedes, the off-duty NYPD officer who survived being stabbed seven times during a robbery in the Bronx, made his first public remarks Tuesday since leaving the hospital, offering an account of his recovery as the two men accused in the attack await extradition to New York.
Mercedes, 33, a ten-year veteran of the department, was cleaning the trunk of his personal vehicle when two men attacked him from behind, according to the NYPD. Despite his injuries, he chased after the assailants before they fled on an e-bike. The suspects, identified as D'Angelo Caraballo, 25, and Sneider Mejia, 24, allegedly escaped to Massachusetts, where authorities later arrested them in a basement hideout. Both are being held without bail and are expected to face attempted murder charges once returned to New York.
Both men are undocumented immigrants from the Dominican Republic with prior criminal records. Caraballo had been arrested in December 2024 and released before Immigration and Customs Enforcement could lodge a detainer request, a sequence that has drawn sharp criticism from law enforcement officials and immigration enforcement advocates.
The attack has intensified an already charged debate in New York City over sanctuary policies and their consequences for public safety. As Mercedes recovers, the city is also contending with an unrelated shooting involving ICE agents that critics say could have been avoided under different local policies.
In that separate case, 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 path, authorities said. Belgal survived, and a 5-year-old child in his vehicle was unharmed.
Although the NYPD had no role in that incident, critics seized on it to demand cuts to the Strategic Response Group, a specialized unit trained for crowd control, parade security and other operations. Vincent Vallelong, president of the NYPD's Sergeants Benevolent Association, rejected those calls, saying the unit was not involved in the shooting or its aftermath.
«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,» Vallelong said. «They're putting people in harm's way.»
Vallelong also criticized Darializa Avila Chevalier, a Democratic Socialist congressional nominee, who he said ranted that NYPD personnel trying to keep order at the hospital where Belgal was being treated were «escalating» the situation by attempting to contain protesters.
The two cases have converged into a broader political fight over immigration enforcement and local cooperation with federal authorities. Caraballo's release before ICE could issue a detainer has become a focal point for those arguing that sanctuary policies shield repeat offenders from deportation. The Department of Homeland Security has demanded that New York officials honor detainer requests, citing the case of a man convicted of raping a corpse on a subway.
Mercedes' recovery continues as the legal process for the two suspects moves forward. His public remarks mark the first time he has addressed the attack since being discharged from the hospital, and they come as the city weighs the policy questions the case has brought to the forefront.