A repeat criminal on probation hit a new NYPD officer hard, knocking her down onto a Bronx sidewalk. Other police then jumped on him and arrested him in a crazy arrest that was caught on camera Thursday night.
Authorities and law enforcement sources say that Ernst Delma, 41, hit the female officer in the face when she tried to stop him from fighting with a group of kids on a Clason Point street corner.
A witness recorded the tense moments after Delma is said to have punched the police officer to the ground at 7:10 p.m. on the corner of Rosedale and Randall Avenues.
From the video, it looks like someone helped the cop get up while her partner rushed the suspect. Blood was streaming from her face.
Video shows that during a fight on the ground, her partner threw at least two haymakers.
As he tried to fight the police officer, his pants and underwear fell down, making him look bad. The officer eventually handcuffed him, leaving his behind bare while people watched the crazy scene.
The officer got a cut on her lip and was taken to a nearby hospital, where her state was said to be stable.
Delma’s accused victim was named as Mary Fay, a rookie police officer who had only been on the job for eight months.
Police records show that she has only made five charges. The criminal charges against Delma were not one of them.
Delma was walked out of a Bronx police station hours after being arrested with a stitched-up, swollen eye and a promise to do better.
With a T-shirt that had a famous picture of Muhammad Ali knocking out Sonny Liston on it, Delma said, “I didn’t mean to punch her.” “It was for self-defense.”
“I’m truly sorry for what I did.” “I was drunk, so I didn’t know I did it,” he said before getting into a police car.
When asked about his injuries outside the precinct, Delma didn’t seem to mind that the cops were beating him up.
“Several police officers hit me in the face,” he said. “But not too much.” Not a big deal.
He kept making the same claims in court on Friday, when he was charged with assaulting a police officer, refusing arrest, and getting in the way of the government running its business.
Delma apologized and said he didn’t mean to hit the woman, who he said he didn’t even know was a police officer.
A judge didn’t believe her and set Delma’s bail at $100,000.
PBA President Patrick Hendry told The Post, “We’re glad that this dangerous person is staying off the streets, but no one should believe his sorry excuse that he didn’t know he hit a police officer.”
“The facts are the facts: he hit our sister so hard that she fell to the ground and got seriously hurt. She was in full uniform with her shield shining on her chest.” He doesn’t feel bad about hitting her. He’s sorry he was caught.
After being arrested, he was taken to St. Barnabas to be checked out.
Delma is on probation for a crime he committed in New Jersey. He has been arrested many times in the last few years for assault and theft, including a case in July 2022 where he hit a woman on Broadway in Midtown without reason, according to law enforcement sources.
Sources say that Delma hit the woman in the face while she was walking near the Minskoff Theatre, which is a popular tourist spot that shows The Lion King. Several sources say that his brutal attack made her nose and upper lip red.
As of this writing, New Jersey officials hadn’t responded to The Post’s request for more information about Delma’s supervision.
However, court records from New Jersey suggest that Delma may have a past of attacking police. Records show that in 2012, a person with the same name and age as Delma pleaded guilty to throwing body fluid at a police officer.
Hendry spoke out against the mean attack on another police officer.