By Michaelangelo Conte
An off-duty North Bergen police
officer has been charged with biting a man’s thigh and causing serious injury
during an early morning fight in North Hudson Park, officials said.
Officer Alex J. Guzman, 34, of
Wood-Ridge, made his first court appearance Wednesday on the charges of
aggravated assault and making terroristic threats in connection to the incident
which occurred just after midnight on April 8 in James J. Braddock North Hudson
Park, officials said.
Arrested on the night of the
incident was the other person allegedly involved, Joffre Alcantara, 35, of
Cliffside Park, who was charged with aggravated assault and weapons offenses
related to a knife, officials said.
Guzman assaulted Alcantara by
“biting the victim’s inner right thigh through blue jeans, causing serious
bodily injury to Mr. Alcantara,” the criminal complaint says.
The officer threatened to kill
Alcantara and put him in “imminent fear of death” by calling him four times
within a 10-minute time span, saying “I’m going to kill you. I will end this
now,” the complaint says.
Alcantara used a knife “to
cause bodily injury to the victim Mr. Alex Guzman by slashing him behind his
ear,” says the complaint against Alcantara.
That night Guzman was taken to
Palisade Medical Center, where he was treated and released, officials said. The
warrant for his arrest was signed on Tuesday.
Guzman was released into his
own custody.
The amount at which Alcantara’s
bail was set was not available, but an official at the Hudson County jail in
Kearny said yesterday that no one by that name is being held at the facility.