One of the thugs suspected of savagely beating and robbing an off-duty NYPD cop in The Bronx was busted in Virginia on Tuesday — after fleeing there with his mommy, law-enforcement sources said.
Taveon Hargrove — who at 23 already has a rap sheet with more than a dozen arrests — was nabbed by the US Marshals’ Regional Fugitive Task Force in North Chesterfield for the brutal caught-on-video early Saturday attack on the 27-year-old officer on St. Peters Avenue in Westchester Square, according to the sources.
Cops used the injured officer’s own handcuffs to take him in, they said.
Taveon Hargrove, one of the suspects who allegedly beat an off-duty cop and stole his service weapon in the Bronx is arrested. NYPD
Charges are pending against Hargrove, who cops over the weekend warned was “to be considered armed and dangerous.”
After police released a wanted poster for his arrest, the suspect and his mother fled the Big Apple and were hiding out in the Virginia home, which belongs to a friend, according to the sources.
He tried to run when cops found him there Tuesday — hiding inside the garage at the house, where he had been sleeping on a mattress on the floor, sources said.
Hargrove refused to come out of the garage when officers arrived, sources said. Authorities sent in a dog, and he tried to punch the dog, and the dog attacked him, sources said.
Photos show Hargrove after he was apprehended with a badly bloodied face.
Sources said the criminal already has 13 prior arrests, including four as a juvenile. One involves a Bronx weapons-possession charge Dec. 4.
The off-duty cop, who was not immediately identified, was hospitalized after the incident.
In that case, he was allegedly found with a knife after jumping a subway turnstile but later skipped out on a Dec. 23 court appearance and was sought on a warrant.
Surveillance video of Saturday’s Bronx attack on the cop captured two masked men approaching the officer on the sidewalk and immediately throwing him to the ground next to a huge pile of trash.
One of the attackers could be seen holding a blade to the officer’s neck as the other rifled through his pockets.
Police said the crooks made off with the officer’s Glock 19 .9mm handgun.
Surveillance video of the assault on the police officer in the Bronx. DCPIHargrove’s bust came soon after NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch told FOX 5’s Good Day New York that police were “hot on his trail” over the weekend.
“We really put the full resources of the New York City Police Department into finding this guy, and I hope and expect we will have him soon,” the top cop said Tuesday morning.
Hargrove was still awaiting extradition to New York from Virginia on Tuesday evening.
The suspect’s violent accomplice has not yet been caught, but his father, Jeffrey Hargrove, 55, was busted Sunday for allegedly using the cop’s stolen credit card at several Bronx bodegas, cops and sources said.
The NYPD released pictures of the suspects. NYPD
Surveillance footage of the two suspects.
Meanwhile, the injured officer is making a gradual recovery, Tisch said.
He remembers the assault, sources said.
According to sources, he successfully underwent surgery on his eye socket and had cheekbone reconstruction on Tuesday.
“I went to visit him a few times this weekend. So did the mayor,” the commissioner said.
“He’s going to have some surgery this afternoon, and we are very hopeful for a full recovery, but he had lots of broken bones on his face. He was in rough shape.”
“To anyone thinking of assaulting a police officer, you do it, and we’re coming for you,” she warned.
