A deranged Bronx man repeatedly fell through the cracks in New York City’s broken system — and outrage is growing that it took allegedly killing a 14-year-old boy for him to finally be locked away in a psychiatric facility.
The saga of Waldo Mejia — who shouted “I’m with Satan!” in court after cops said he randomly plunged a knife into teen Caleb Rijos’ chest — shows the dire need to change the state’s involuntary commitment laws, pols and lawyers told The Post.
“New York City’s criminal justice system – including the ever-evolving bail statutes – is just not equipped to handle people who are clearly indicating advanced signs of mental illness and engage in bizarre and violent acts,” said Mark Bederow, a Big Apple defense attorney who’s not involved in the case.
“There were all kinds of red flags with this guy from before this terrible incident and it’s just senseless.”
Over years of spiraling mental illness, Mejia menaced his mother, set the lobby of his ex-girlfriend’s building on fire and dementedly stabbed a neighbor’s doorbell camera, records and sources said.
But Mejia, 29, seems to have repeatedly skirted out of mental health care, leaving him free to allegedly first slash a straphanger, then fatally stab Rijos in January.
“He’s doing it in front of us, in front of our own eyes and our criminal justice system just continues to let it happen time and time again,” said Assemblyman Sam Pirozzolo (R-Staten Island), who has proposed a bill that would automatically force someone into a mental health treatment program if they are arrested for the same crime 10 times.
A judge this week ordered Mejia to a psychiatric facility, where he’ll stay until he’s deemed fit to stand trial on murder and manslaughter charges in Rijos’ slaying.
The move came shortly after Albany Democrats appeared poised to weaken or reject Gov. Kathy Hochul’s bid to expand involuntary commitment laws in the upcoming state budget.
Instead, the Dems were circling a weaker proposal to require review panels after incidents in which mentally ill people fall through the cracks or harm others.
One source familiar with state budget negotiations indicated that Hochul, Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie (D-Bronx) and Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins (D-Westchester) touched on the governor’s involuntary commitment proposal in preliminary closed-door talks and that they’re in general agreement that something needs to be done.
But the talks, which began in earnest this week, have not delved into what exactly those changes could entail — or if they could have swooped up someone like Mejia and prevented Rijos’ senseless death.
NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch, in a news conference after Rijos’ Jan. 10 murder, said the case should be a call to action for dealing with repeat offenders and people severe mental health issues.
“The status quo is just not working for New Yorkers,” Tisch said.
“A brutal, unprovoked killing of a 14-year-old child by a career criminal or recidivist over and over again, with [a severe] history of mental health interactions with the NYPD.”
Mejia had suffered schizophrenia and his family had pushed him to voluntarily get treatment since a 2015 arrest, although he often stopped taking his medication, his stepbrother told Gothamist.
The 2015 arrest — during which cops said Mejia had a gravity knife, supposed for protection — was the first of at least four times that NYPD officers took him into custody, according to law-enforcement sources.
Mejia’s next arrest came in May 2017, when his mother told police that he called her to say he was going to break everything in her Bronx home, according to the sources.
She returned home, where she was confronted by Mejia, who told her, “I have a gun,” the sources said. Nervous, she called the police, who arrested her son.
The outcome of both weapons cases remained unclear.
Then in 2019, cops again arrested Mejia after he set the lobby of ex-girlfriend’s Bronx apartment building on fire, source said.
He pleaded down his arson charge to reckless endangerment, and was granted released on the condition that he undergo mental health treatment, according to The New York Times.
The next arrest came on Nov. 27, 2024 — just over a month before Rijos’ killing — when his neighbor turned over disturbing Ring footage of a dead-eyed Mejia repeatedly stabbing the doorbell camera with a knife, shattering it.
The neighbor said Mejia had repeatedly harassed him, according to the sources.
Albany in the way
Gov. Kathy Hochul is facing pushback from the state Legislature on her proposal to curb New York City’s mental health crisis. The state Assembly and Senate either entirely omitted or scrapped parts of Hochul’s bid to expand involuntary commitment in their respective counterproposals to the governor’s budget plan. Hochul’s proposal includes:
- Widening the criteria in which a person can be forced into psychiatric treatment to include situations where their mental health issues prevent them from caring for their basic needs such as food, clothing and medical care.
- Expanding the group of people who have the power to involuntarily commit someone to include psychiatric nurse practitioners.
- Streamlining aspects of Kendra’s Law, which allows a court to order individuals with mental illness into assisted outpatient treatment.
But he walked free on his own recognizance the next day because his misdemeanor case wasn’t bail-eligible.
Mejia’s defense attorney, Patrick Brackley, said Friday he was still trying to piece together his client’s history. He was unsure whether Mejia had been required to undergo a psych exam with any of his previous cases.
“That’s the heart of the matter, because it’s clearly an individual who has pre-existing psychological issues, is incapable, as we can now understand, of taking care of himself,” Brackley told The Post. “So, somewhere he was put in a position where he was not being properly medicated.”
New York’s bail reforms also tied the judge’s hands in the doorbell case, said Bederow, a former Manhattan prosecutor.
Eligibility for bail and consideration of Mejia’s potential dangerousness could have paved the way for a mental competency exam, which could have seen him get committed instead of released back into the public.
“It’s an example of someone slipping through the cracks,” Bederow said.
Police believe a crazed, free Mejia had randomly slashed a straphanger’s arm on Jan. 5 in a Mott Haven train station.
A week later, Rijos was walking to school along East 138th Street when Mejia stabbed him twice in the chest, cops said.
Rijos called his father as he lay dying and said he was scared and couldn’t breathe, Bronx District Attorney Darcel Clark told reporters.
One of the Rijos’ family’s neighbors — Ideliz Rodriguez, 47 — said the teen’s father is broken man and rarely talks since the senseless stabbing.
“He walks with his head down or looks straight ahead when he’s coming in the building,” she said.
Elizabeth Lawson, another family friend, said Rijos’ father is angry.
“He’s messed up. He’s upset all the time,” she said.
“This should have never happened. They always wait for something to happen in order for them to do something.”
Inside the lobby of Rijos’ apartment building, his friends and neighbors set up a memorial. They’ve plastered posters and stuck balloons and flowers along the tiled walls, which are scrawled with message of love and calls for justice.
“Mental illness is not an excuse to take an innocent life!” one note read.
— Additional reporting by Amanda Woods and Kyle Schnitzer
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