Cops nab NYC Chase customer who stabilized security guard

Friends and neighbors of the bank security guard slashed by an unhinged man on the Upper East Side were pulling for the victim on Saturday as the suspected attacker was in police custody.

They described the guard as a neighborhood fixture who regularly socialized on his Kensington, Brooklyn block.

“I’m glad he survived. He’s family to us,” said Tomas Rolando, 69, who works as a muralist.

“We thought he was going to die. He usually comes Saturday, to play music with us,” he said of the Ecuadorian immigrant, adding that the victim regularly brought the party to life with salsa music and speakers on their shared corner.

Ex-con Jorge Santiago, 34, was taken into custody around 1 am Saturday in the Bronx for the Friday morning attack inside the Chase Bank branch at the corner of E. 86th St. and Second Ave., police said.

Santiago, who lives about 10 blocks from the bank, ran off down E. 86th St. after plunging a blade into the security guard’s neck and disappeared into a subway station.

Witnesses told police that Santiago entered the bank at about 9 am and began arguing with employees.

“It looks like he did have business in the bank, but he began yelling and having problems,” a police source with knowledge of the case said.

Workers asked him to leave and the 59-year-old guard was called in to escort him from the premises.

When the two got to the vestibule, Santiago began fighting with the guard. During the brawl, he pulled his blade and plunged it into the victim’s neck, cops said.

When cops arrived, the victim, a father of two, was bleeding from wounds to his neck and shoulders.

EMS rushed the guard to New York Presbyterian-Weill Cornell Medical Center, where he underwent surgery. He remained in critical but stable condition Saturday.

It was the security guard’s first day at the Chase Bank branch, neighbors told the Daily News.

“They’re good people. They’ve lived here about four or five years. We knew he worked as security, but not in a bank. It’s horrible that happened,” neighbor Miguel Hernandez said.

Detectives charged Santiago with attempted murder, assault and weapons possession. His arraignment in Manhattan Criminal Court was pending Saturday.

He served five months in the Mid-State Correctional Facility in Marcy, NY, after a 2017 assault conviction in the Bronx, court papers show. He was paroled after his release, but his parole ended in August 2020.

Santiago has been arrested four times since 2008, mostly for assault and weapons possession, police sources said.