A man with a long rap sheet who was recorded on video whacking an NYPD officer in the head with a bottle Monday told other officers that “God told him to do this,” law enforcement sources told the New York Post.
Jose Garcia, 45, was filmed walking up behind the uniformed female officer as she stood on a busy sidewalk in Kingsbridge Monday afternoon. The video shows him hitting her in the back of the head.
The recording, posted to the NYC Scoop Twitter feed, then shows the officer and a civilian subduing the suspect who was arrested.
Garcia, of Kingsbridge Heights, was arrested and charged with assault, obstruction of governmental administration, resisting arrest, menacing, criminal possession of a weapon, and harassment, police said.
The injured officer – who was conducting smoke shop inspections with the New York City Sheriff’s Department when she was attacked – was taken to St. Barnabas Hospital, where she was treated and is listed in stable condition.
Garcia has reportedly been diagnosed with mental illness and has a long record of bizarre and criminal behavior.
In 2014, he allegedly threatened to shoot employees at an unnamed business after he stopped taking his meds for bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. Then he fought the responding officers, yelling that he was on PCP and going to kill them.
He has also been arrested at least five times before for crimes such as robbery, grand larceny and weapons possession, sources told the Post.
