The violent Bronx nut accused of fatally randomly stabbing a 14-year-old boy as he walked to high school was booted from courtroom Sunday when he launched right into a “loopy’’ rant in regards to the “White Home” and “al Qaeda.’’
Waldo Mejia, 29, had been hauled earlier than a choose for allegedly killing tragic teen Caleb Rios by sticking a knife into the boy’s chest on East 138th Road on Friday morning. The suspect additionally was being arraigned on an unrelated stabbing Mejia allegedly dedicated a couple of week in the past.
Authorities have charged Mejia, who lives down the block from the teenager’s household — and proper throughout from the fortieth Precinct — with second-degree homicide, tried homicide and different offenses for the heinous crimes.
The suspect, who has a prolonged rap sheet and a historical past of psychological sickness, interrupted his first courtroom look by shouting rambling statements about world politics.
“He began yelling ‘White Home!’ and ‘al-Qaeda!’ ” a courtroom officer instructed The Submit. “He’s again there yappin’ now. He’s simply nuts — you possibly can have a look at his face and see it.”
Mejia’s lawyer, Paul Horowitz, stated the courtroom remanded his shopper earlier than additionally ordering a psychiatric examination.
“I can’t be defending him sooner or later,” Horowitz stated. “I used to be simply right here for the arraignment. … He acted out. He was simply screaming nonsense!”
Caleb Rios was strolling to high school close to Lincoln Avenue and 138th Road round 9 a.m. when Mejia allegedly launched his ugly assault that prompted NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch to say the state’s authorized system “proceed[s] to fail us.”
As Caleb lay dying from the injuries, he made a heartbreaking final telephone name to his dad, prosecutors stated.
“He known as his father and instructed his father that he couldn’t breathe and that he was scared, and his father heard him dying,” Bronx District Lawyer Darcel Clark instructed reporters at a Saturday information convention. “It’s unfathomable to consider the extent of this tragedy.”
Authorities rushed the boy to Lincoln Medical Heart, however he died from his accidents.
“Immediately, a 14-year old-boy is useless,” Tisch stated on the time. “A household is devastated, a metropolis is in mourning, and the programs that we’ve got in place to take care of repeat offenders and people with extreme psychological well being points proceed to fail us.”
Rios’ household declined to talk to The Submit on Sunday, with a younger man telling a reporter via a closed house door that his household “needs to maintain it non-public.”
Mejia has additionally been charged with tried homicide for allegedly stabbing one other man close to Alexander Avenue and the 138th Road Station in Mott Haven within the borough at about 3:50 a.m. on Jan. 5, in response to a felony grievance.
Through the assault, Mejia allegedly caught his 38-year-old sufferer with “ample pressure to trigger the knife to totally perforate via stated individual’s left arm and enter into stated individual’s chest cavity, inflicting a laceration to the artery of his left arm, a major lack of blood and lack of consciousness requiring life-saving surgical procedure at a neighborhood Bronx hospital,” the grievance stated.
That encounter additionally earned Mejia a pair of assault prices, courtroom docs present.
The suspect has had not less than 4 extra prior felony circumstances — together with a Might 2017 arrest during which cops caught him with a loaded 9mm pistol and an April 2019 arson cost for setting the foyer of his ex-girlfriend’s constructing on hearth, authorities stated.
He later pleaded the arson prices all the way down to reckless endangerment and was granted a conditional discharge, officers stated.
Mejia was well-known for terrorizing his neighbors and even stabbed certainly one of their Ring doorbell cameras with an enormous blade again in November.
The resident who lives within the house declined to offer his identify to The Submit on Sunday however was completely happy to listen to his off-kilter neighbor — who additionally tried to kick his door in — is now in custody.
“I’ve been actually scared for plenty of days in a row,” the person stated. “After they grabbed him after which when he did what he did to my digital camera after which three days later he was within the constructing? I received mad scared.
“All of us knew what occurred to the child may have occurred to me,” he stated of Caleb. “May have occurred to my spouse. May have occurred to my mom.”
A younger couple who lives immediately beneath the alleged killer described Mejia as “f–king insane.
“We’re all afraid of him,” the second man stated. “Each evening at like 4 or 5 a.m. you’d hear him stomping across the house yelling, ‘Go away me the f*** alone!’
“And if I’d see him down within the morning … you might inform he was up all evening,” he continued. “I’d nod to him, and he simply checked out me with the identical scary face he had on when he was stabbing that digital camera.
“All of us knew he was mentally in poor health, however we didn’t suppose he was going to do that.”
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