911 calls ignored as ma slashed
Phones 3 times during Bx. assault; cops show 12 hours later
The breakup was followed by a breakin. And then — despite three calls to 911 — a Bronx mom’s 12-hour wait for help.
Jennifer Vega recounted the terrifying winter’s night when her recent ex-boyfriend arrived uninvited through her apartment bedroom window, slashed her leg with a liquor bottle and hung around for hours as she waited in vain for someone to save her this past Feb. 18.
Spurned boyfriend Manual Rivera at one point went outside to wait for police after hearing sirens during the ordeal on Teller Ave. near E. 166th St. Vega first dialed 911 after his 9:05 p.m. arrival and made the final call hours before help finally arrived at 9:27 a.m. the next day.
Vega was finally taken to the BronxCare Health System for treatment, with Rivera still on the loose three months later. The NYPD has launched an internal review into the long delay.
“The cops that showed up said they were following up on my call,” Vega, 30, told the Daily News. “And I told them, ‘What are you following up on if he already left?’ He already did what he had to do. I’m already injured.”
According to Vega, she made her first call for help when she spotted her ex trying to enter through the window. The second call was made about 30 minutes later, after Rivera slashed her leg with a liquor bottle. And finally, after the suspect left and subsequently came back inside her home, a third call was made when he departed for good after midnight.
After her second 911 call, Vega recalled, the suspect went outside and spent two hours waiting for police to put him in handcuffs. He reentered her home two hours later, continuing to rant and rave before finally leaving as Vega continued her wait for police or an ambulance.
“I didn’t see when he did it,” she said of the slashing. “I just felt the sting, like it was burning. That’s when I called the cops [again], because I was wanting him to get out because my kids were here.”
Vega eventually cleaned up her leg wound herself and went to bed once her tormentor departed into the night.
“The incident is under internal review,” said an NYPD spokesman, with sources adding it appears the dispatcher or dispatchers involved failed to notify police about Vega’s calls.
The initial call, before Vega was cut with the vodka bottle, came in as a dispute with no injuries and no weapon involved on a night when the 44th Precinct faced a backlog of calls, the sources added.
The suspect, wanted for felony assault, remains a fugitive as the investigation continues, a police source indicated.
Vega, the mother of five children, was dating Rivera for only six weeks before breaking it off to reconcile with her old beau — the father of her kids. She moved with the children to Pennsylvania two days after the incident, returning in late March, and says the NYPD is now taking a deeper look into the case.
“They’ve been coming and knocking on my door, which I don’t like,” she said. “It’s just like, now they want to do something about it. When it happens, it could have been avoided. They didn’t do their job.”