Startling video obtained by the Daily News shows the Bronx man accused of knifing a 14-year-old boy to death stabbing a Ring doorbell multiple times with a large knife weeks earlier — leaving his neighbor scared for his life.
Waldo Mejia is accused of randomly killing Caleb Rijos as the boy walked to school Friday morning. At the time of the slaying, Mejia, 29, faced an ongoing criminal case for allegedly kicking a neighbor’s door and damaging their Ring doorbell in the suspect’s apartment building in Mott Haven.
The trouble in Mejia’s building on Alexander Ave. near E. 139th St. began when the 43-year-old neighbor was awoken around 4 a.m. by Mejia, who apparently didn’t have a key.
Mejia was pounding on the building’s front door and ringing the neighbor’s intercom, trying to get inside.
The next day, the neighbor encountered Mejia in the staircase and confronted him about the commotion.
“I said, ‘Listen, why you be (ringing) my door?’” the neighbor recalled. “You got no keys, ask for the super.”
That conversation apparently set Mejia off.
“Next day, he hit my door — boom!” the neighbor said. “Kicked it hard.”
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Ring footage shows Mejia trying to remove his neighbor’s doorbell camera’s lens before getting frustrated about 7 p.m. Nov. 27. He then angrily kicked the door before retreating upstairs. About 30 minutes later, he returned with a long kitchen knife and stabbed the camera multiple times, cracking it, the creepy footage shows.
Mejia was arrested for harassment and criminal mischief that day but the charges are not bail eligible so he was cut loose after his arraignment in Bronx Criminal Court.
His quick release and return to the building unsettled his neighbor.
“I got nervous,’” the neighbor said. “I saw him. I said, ‘Oh, my God, this guy’s here.”
Waldo Mejia (pictured) was arrested on Nov. 27 after he allegedly hammered on his neighbor’s door and furiously stabbed the Ring doorbell camera affixed to it. (Obtained by Daily News)
Since then the neighbor has made sure Mejia is not around before leaving home.
“Every time I go by the stairs — my wife is the same way — we had to check my camera to see if the guy left,” the 43-year-old neighbor told the Daily News. “I don’t want nothing to happen to me!”
Neighbors had good reason to be scared of Mejia.
On Jan. 5, Mejia allegedly jumped a 38-year-old stranger heading down the stairs at the Third Ave.-E. 138th St. subway station a block from Mejia’s home then knifed him in the left arm. The blade perforated the limb, cut an artery and entered the man’s chest cavity, according to a criminal complaint.
The victim needed life-saving surgery but survived. The attacker got away.
Then about 9:30 a.m. Friday, Mejia ambushed Caleb near E. 138th St. and Lincoln Ave., half a block from the subway attack and close to where the high schooler lived, according to cops
Mejia jammed a serrated kitchen knife twice into the boy’s chest, cutting through his heart and lung, according to cops. The teen ran off and called his father, begging his dad for help with his final breaths.
Waldo Mejia (pictured) was arrested Nov. 27 after he allegedly hammered on his neighbor’s door and furiously stabbed the Ring doorbell camera affixed to it. (Obtained by Daily News)
It took a day for cops to nab Mejia for the slaying. NYPD detectives conducted a 1,000-foot radius search of the area and checked pervious crimes involving knives “and got an interesting result,” NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch said at a Saturday press conference about the arrest in Caleb’s killing. “Just 750 feet away there was an earlier crime in which an individual stabbed a Ring camera.”
Waldo Mejia was arrested Nov. 27 after he allegedly hammered on his neighbor’s door and furiously stabbed the Ring doorbell camera affixed to it, pictured here. (Obtained by Daily News)
“When detectives showed the arresting officer in that case the images taken from Friday’s stabbing, she immediately recognized the perp as Mr. Mejia,” Tisch added.
“Officers now knew who they were looking for and where he lived. They obtained footage from the same Ring camera he had stabbed weeks prior and saw him leaving his residence a few minutes before Friday’s stabbing.”
Cops grabbed Mejia returning to his building just after midnight Saturday. He was wearing the same sneakers and pants he wore during the fatal stabbing about 15 hours earlier.
“And he was in possession of a bloody knife,” Tisch said.
Mejia has a long criminal history, including four unsealed arrests, Tisch said. Two of those arrests involved knives while a third involved a gun.
Mejia was ordered held without bail during his arraignment on murder charges in Bronx Criminal Court Saturday. “My name is Waldo Mejia, so get ready to f–king suffer along with me!” the suspect shouted during his chaotic court appearance.
The neighbor with the damaged Ring doorbell said he was shocked when police knocked on his door Saturday to tell him about Caleb’s killing.
“I feel bad for the mother,” he said. “It’s very bad.”
Waldo Mejia, the suspect in the unprovoked stabbing death of Caleb Rijos, 14, is pictured in police custody leaving the NYPD’s 40th Precinct stationhouse in the Bronx on Saturday. (Theodore Parisienne / New York Daily News)
He mused Mejia might have stabbed him too if given the chance.
“You open the door, the guy comes with a knife, and then what? I’ll be dead,” the neighbor said.
“I feel good that the guy is in jail because, you know, I don’t want nothing to happen to nobody…. I feel good. Like, I feel a little safe now. I feel better, man.”
