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A violent vagrant with a string of Big Apple assault busts on his rap sheet is finally behind bars after cops said he slashed a clerk at a Brooklyn discount store with a machete and tried to set him on fire.
All because he couldn’t afford a stick of gum.
Joaquin Hidalgo, 35, couldn’t come up with the cash for the gum at the Brooklyn Two 99-cent store in Bushwick on Monday, so he pulled out a machete, threatened workers, slashed one and doused him in lighter fluid before setting a flag outside on fire as he fled, according to police and prosecutors.
When cops caught up with Hidalgo — who was on the streets despite open cases in Brooklyn, Manhattan and Staten Island — the career criminal was finally ordered held on bail.
“He is locked up now — for now,” one law enforcement source told The Post. “But we have to make sure he stays there or this ticking time bomb will continue committing these random acts of violence — more acts of escalating violence with machetes. And now, arson?”
According to police, Hidalgo walked into the Broadway discount store shortly before 1 p.m. on Monday and grabbed some gum — but didn’t have the money to pay for it.
Instead, he allegedly pulled out a machete and threatened the stunned store employees, slashing one in the left hand — then pulling out a container of lighter fluid and pouring that on the injured man.
Police said Hidalgo then fled, but lit a flag outside the store on fire before running into the Chauncey Street subway station, where cops later caught up with him.
He was arraigned in Brooklyn Criminal Court on Wednesday and ordered held on $25,000 cash bail or a $50,000 bond on assault, arson, robbery and a slew of other charges, prosecutors said.
Hidalgo had remained free without bail until now despite a string of arrests — because the lesser assault charge he kept getting hit with is not eligible for bail under state bail reform statutes.
According to court records, his last arrest came on Thursday in Brooklyn, when he was charged with assault, attempted assault and harassment for allegedly slugging another man inside the holding cells at the NYPD’s 73rd Precinct station house.
He was at the precinct after getting busted the day before on charges of possession of a knife and disorderly conduct at an Ocean Hill subway station when a straphanger spotted him smoking in the transit system and carrying a blade more than 4 inches long, records show.
He was arraigned on both cases on Friday and released without bail.
On Feb. 2, he was arrested in Manhattan on assault and harassment charges for an alleged attack on Halloween, during which he is accused of hitting a woman in the head with a bottle on Bradhurst Avenue in Harlem, a complaint in that case shows.
Manhattan prosecutors said they requested that Hidalgo be released under supervision and asked for an order of protection to keep him away from the victim, both of which the judge approved.
Hidalgo was already facing assault, weapons and harassment charges in Staten Island for getting into a dispute on Tompkins Avenue on Nov. 11 and hitting the victim in the chest with “a silver hatchet with a brown handle,” according to a criminal complaint in that case.
Records show he was released without bail in that case as well, although a warrant was issued for his arrest after he blew off a Jan. 7 court appearance.
“Multiple arrests one after another, violence on top of violence,” the law enforcement source said. “Sensible outcomes seem to evade our courts, and mental health care systems fail to provide any satisfactory result that doesn’t involve just letting a deranged person walk around unabated.”
He is now being held at Rikers Island on the latest Brooklyn arrest.
