The man charged with throwing a rock at a school bus earlier this month, fracturing the skull of an 8-year-old girl, is an illegal immigrant who had been shielded from deportation by New Jersey’s laws despite a criminal record that stretches over 20 years.
Hernando Garcia-Morales, 40, was charged in the Jan. 7 incident, in which a bus on the New Jersey Turnpike in Teaneck Township was hit with a baseball-size rock, according to the New York Post. The rock struck the third-grader on a field trip with the Yeshivat Noam Jewish day school in Paramus, sending her to a hospital.
Garcia-Morales told police the bus “was the devil or his enemy” when he was arrested on Jan. 9, the newspaper reported.
Since his arrest, the Department of Homeland Security has learned that Garcia-Morales has been living in the United States illegally. The suspect is a Mexican citizen, DHS said.
“Violently targeting a school bus full of children is extremely wicked and heinous,” said DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin, the New York Post reported. “Hernando Garcia-Morales should have never been in this country, let alone released after multiple arrests into New Jersey communities.
“ICE has lodged an arrest detainer against this monster, and we hope New Jersey’s sanctuary politicians will help us keep him off American streets for good,” McLaughlin said.
DHS said that the state’s sanctuary policies allowed Garca-Morales to commit crime after crime without being deported.
Back in 2006, Garcia-Morales was convicted on charges of possession of a weapon and theft, DHS said. He was sentenced to 330 days in jail, the New York Post reported.
In July 2023, Garcia-Morales was arrested on two successive days, according to the newspaper. Burglary charges from his first arrest were dropped while charges for giving false information and attempted burglary resulted in a 30-day sentence and a fine of $905.
During a Jan. 16 detention hearing for Garca-Morales, Assistant Prosecutor Ricky Ruddy called the girl’s injuries “horrifying,” according to the Bergen Record.
The child suffered a laceration on her forehead and sustained a nickel-sized fracture of her orbital bone.
A titanium mesh plate and screws were placed in her head. Fragments of bone were removed. Her right sinus was removed and her eyes were swollen shut from the impact of the rock.
When arrested, Garca-Morales gave police a fake name, the newspaper reported.
Garcia-Morales is a suspect in several rock-throwing incidents in 2025. He has also been accused of peeping into homes in the New Jersey community of Bogata.
The bus was taking students back to their school after a trip to the Liberty Science Center in Jersey City when it was hit, according to WABC-TV.
The girl was the only student injured.
Garcia-Morales was charged with aggravated assault, possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose, endangering the welfare of a child, criminal mischief, resisting arrest by flight, and hindering.
“The girl will be OK. She did have surgery Thursday for a fractured skull, and she is recovering,” Teaneck Mayor Mark J. Schwartz said, according to the New York Post.
“There’s no indication it’s a bias crime. At the same time, it was a slow-moving bus off a ramp with visibly Jewish kids inside,” Schwartz said before Garcia-Morales was arrested, according to NJ.com.
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