The Department of Homeland Security announced on Saturday that the suspect arrested earlier this month for hurling a baseball-sized rock at a New Jersey school bus, fracturing an eight-year-old’s skull, is an illegal alien from Mexico with a long rap sheet.
The attack occurred on January 7, and two days later, Hernando Garcia-Morales, 40, was arrested at a homeless encampment in Palisades Park by the New Jersey Turnpike State Police for “aggravated assault, resisting arrest and possession of a weapon.”
Separately, the Bogota Police Department charged Garcia-Morales with “aggravated assault, criminal trespassing defiant, criminal trespassing peering, and criminal mischief damage property,” as per Fox News.
He allegedly threw a rock from a New Jersey Turnpike overpass as the students were returning to Teaneck from a field trip to the Liberty Science Center in Jersey City.
According to prosecutors, the victim, a third-grade student at the Yeshivat Noam School in Teaneck, “suffered a deep laceration on her forehead and fracture the size of a nickel to her orbital bone.” She underwent surgery, which involved “doctors inserting titanium mesh plates and screws in her head to remedy the severe damage.”
Teaneck Mayor Mark Schwartz told The New York Post that she is “back [at home] and recovering well — and very happy to hear her attacker was apprehended.”
The X post below features Garcia-Morales’ bizarre mugshot and a photo of the broken window where the rock came through.
According to The Post, during his arrest, Garcia-Morales told police officers he believed the bus “was the devil or his enemy.”
DHS said they are unaware of the date or the location of his illegal entry into the U.S., but they noted his criminal record spans more than 20 years.
Some highlights from Garcia-Morales’ rap sheet:
In 2006 he was arrested for possession of a weapon and theft, according to DHS. And he was in trouble with the law twice in 2023, the agency revealed, but was not charged in sanctuary state.On July 23, 2023, Garcia-Morales was arrested for burglary after allegedly entering a building in Hackensack, NJ, DHS reported. Those charges were not pursued. The following day, he was arrested again in Hackensack and charged with giving false information and attempted burglary.Those charges were downgraded by the Municipal Court of Hackensack on Sept. 20, 2023 and Garcia-Morales walked away with only a 30-day jail sentence and $905 fine for disorderly conduct.In the 2006 arrest in Hackensack, he was convicted on both charges and sentenced to 330 days in jail, according to DHS.He is a suspect in several other rock-throwing incidents last year, where cars and cops were targeted, authorities said. He has twice been accused of peeping into homes in Bogota, NJ, according to authorities, NorthJersey.com reported.
Perhaps the most egregious aspect of this case is that, despite his criminal history and illegal status, because of New Jersey’s sanctuary state policy, he was never deported.
DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement, “Violently targeting a school bus full of children is extremely wicked and heinous. Hernando Garcia-Morales should have never been in this country, let alone released after multiple arrests into New Jersey communities.”
“ICE has lodged an arrest detainer against this monster, and we hope New Jersey’s sanctuary politicians will help us keep him off American streets for good,” she said.
Asked for comment on this case, Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-NJ) — a former Democrat — called the Garden State’s immigration policy “completely backwards.”
Van Drew said, “This is exactly what New Jersey’s sanctuary state policies produce. When state leaders choose to protect people who are in this country illegally instead of enforcing the law, they put innocent Americans directly in harm’s way. And once again, a child is the one paying the price.”
Elizabeth writes commentary for Legal Insurrection and The Washington Examiner. She is an academy fellow at The Heritage Foundation. Please follow Elizabeth on X or LinkedIn.
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