Teen on his way to school stabbed to death by career criminal in Democrat-run New York City

THE BRONX, NY- New York Gov. Kathy Hochul may want to retract her statement that violent crime in New York is down. The latest victim of New York’s crime wave is a 14-year-old who was walking to school last Friday. 

Caleb Rios was walking to school when career criminal and mental case Waldo Meija stabbed him twice in the chest in an unprovoked attack on East 138th Street, New York police say. Meija has a history of arrests and mental illness, The New York Post reports. The latest brutal killing prompted NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch to slam “the systems…that continue to fail us.” 

Witnesses said the victim, as he lay dying, called his father. 

“You know, he called his father and told his father that he couldn’t breathe and that he was scared, and his father heard him dying,” Bronx District Attorney Darcel Clark told reporters at a news conference. It’s unfathomable to think about the level of this tragedy.” 

The teen was transported to Lincoln Medical Center, where he passed from his injuries, NYPD officials said. 

Commissioner Tisch condemned the system. 

“Today, a 14-year-old boy is dead. A family is devastated, a city is in mourning, and the systems that we have in place to deal with repeat offenders and individuals with severe mental health issues continue to fail us,” she said. 

While year-to-date statistics are down in 2025 vs. 2024, that doesn’t translate to a safe city. Police data shows that last year, between Jan. 1 and Jan. 5, there were 78 incidents, while this year, there have been 63 stabbings and slashings. 

 Mejia was seen on police surveillance video, and authorities found him after combing the neighborhood for related criminal activity. 

In one case, a resident near the crime scene reported someone had stabbed their doorbell camera with a kitchen knife on Nov. 27, Tisch said. Mejia was identified since he had been arrested in connection with that crime and released on his own recognizance the next day. 

NYPD detectives showed the arresting officer in the doorbell case photos of the suspect in Caleb’s stabbing, and she identified the suspect as Mejia, Commissioner Tisch said. 

“They obtained footage from the same Ring camera he’d stabbed weeks prior and saw him leaving his residence a few minutes before Friday’s stabbing,” Tisch said. 

Tisch blamed the New York criminal justice system for Caleb’s death. 

“The status quo is just not working for New Yorkers,” she said during a news conference. “We do not have a system that puts the rights and needs of victims first. And my message to New Yorkers is something has to give.

“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. How many times [does] the mayor have to keep talking about this before something changes? I’m hoping something will change. Let this be a call to action,” the commissioner added. 

Mejia is a suspect in another stabbing that occurred on Jan. 5 in the Third Avenue and East 138th Street subway station, where a 38-year-old man was slashed in the left arm while standing on the steps, NYPD authorities said. He is due in court on Jan. 21 in that case. 

In April 2019, Mejia was arrested in The Bronx on burglary and arson charges. That case came after he set the lobby of his ex-girlfriend’s building on fire, police said. He pleaded that case down to reckless endangerment and was granted a conditional discharge. 

Mejia was arrested in May 2017 and charged with criminal possession of weapons charges when he was caught with a 9mm pistol loaded with nine rounds of ammo, including one in the chamber. In January 2015, he was caught with a gravity knife. The outcome of that case isn’t clear. 

Tisch also noted that in addition to his lengthy criminal record, Mejia has “a documented history of mental health interaction with the NYPD.”