In the neon glow of a bustling taqueria parking lot, where the sizzle of carnitas and blare of mariachi music usually drown out the world’s woes, chaos erupted like a thunderclap on a quiet October evening. Newly released bodycam footage—dropped by the Waterbury Police Department on November 10, 2025—paints a visceral portrait of raw desperation and unbridled rage as officers wrestled Jonatan Abel Nanita, 30, to the ground in a 92-second melee that left plates shattered, bystanders screaming, and a community gasping for breath. Accused of orchestrating the slow, torturous death of his ex-girlfriend’s 11-year-old daughter, Jacqueline “Mimi” Torres-Garcia, Nanita’s arrest wasn’t a subdued surrender—it was a feral fight, a microcosm of the violence that allegedly claimed a little girl’s life in the shadows of suburban Connecticut.

“Get on the ground! Stop resisting!” bellows Officer Marcus Reyes in the grainy video, his voice cracking with adrenaline as Nanita—built like a linebacker with tattooed arms flailing—charges like a bull released from its pen. Tasers crackle, popping like fireworks in the dusk; a knee drives into Nanita’s back as handcuffs snap shut with metallic finality. “You got the wrong guy! This is bullshit!” Nanita roars, his face contorted in the red-and-blue strobe of patrol lights, spit flying as he twists against four officers’ grip. The footage, viewed over 2 million times on YouTube within hours of release, isn’t just evidence—it’s a gut-wrenching window into the monster unmasked, the man prosecutors say starved, beat, and buried Mimi in a plastic tomb, her 27-pound remains hidden for over a year.

Hartford State’s Attorney Gail Collins, unveiling the video at a tense press briefing yesterday, didn’t mince words. “This is the face of evil fighting back,” she declared, flanked by stone-faced detectives and a blown-up still of Nanita’s snarling mug. “He resisted justice the way he allegedly resisted humanity—violently, without remorse. But tonight, the world sees what Mimi couldn’t escape.” As the clip loops on local news channels and social media feeds, it ignites a firestorm: vigils swell with fury, online sleuths dissect every frame, and child advocates demand swift reckoning. In a state still reeling from Mimi’s autopsy revelation last week—homicide by “fatal child abuse with starvation”—this bodycam bombshell is the spark that could torch the defendants’ defenses.

To grasp the arrest’s brutality, one must plunge into the abyss of Mimi’s short, shattered life—a tale of innocence betrayed by those sworn to protect. Born April 14, 2014, in New Britain’s humming hospital wards, Jacqueline Torres-Garcia was a pint-sized dynamo from the start. Her father, Victor Torres, 32, a Florida-based auto tech nursing eternal guilt, remembers her first steps in a sun-drenched park: “She toddled toward me with those curls bouncing, arms wide like she owned the world. ‘Daddy, catch me!’ she’d yell. I always did.” Mimi’s world fractured early when her parents split in 2018, custody battles leaving scars deeper than any bruise. Karla Roselee Garcia, her mother, 29, won primary guardianship in 2022, pulling Mimi into a whirlwind romance with Nanita, a Dominican-born warehouse loader whose charm masked a simmering volcano.

By 2023, the family—Karla, Nanita, Mimi, and three younger half-siblings—bounced between cramped apartments in New Britain and a upgraded townhouse in Farmington, Section 8 subsidies masking the mounting mayhem. Teachers at Slade Middle School recall Mimi as “the dreamer,” her desk a riot of colored pencils sketching unicorns galloping through candy-cloud skies. “She’d light up talking about art class,” says former educator Sofia Ramirez, now a vocal activist. “But bruises started showing—’I fell off my bike,’ she’d say, eyes darting. We reported to DCF; files vanished into bureaucracy.” Nanita, the stepfather figure, oscillated between doting and domineering: ice cream runs one day, belt lashes for spilled milk the next. Karla’s sister, Jackelyn Leeann Garcia, 28, a frequent fixture with her own neglect-riddled history, amplified the “discipline,” clipping Mimi’s hair short “to teach humility,” per confessions.

The descent accelerated in summer 2024. Withdrawn from school under homeschool pretexts—a red flag waved and ignored—Mimi became the household scapegoat. Arrest warrants, unsealed in waves, reveal a regimen of horror: zip-ties binding her to bedposts, wrists chafed raw; dog pads for bathroom needs, dignity dissolved in urine-soaked shame. Starvation was the weapon of choice—two weeks in September 2024 with naught but water, her pleas ignored as she withered from 60 pounds to skeletal fragility. “She was disrespectful, stealing love from the real kids,” Karla allegedly told interrogators, her words ice-cold in transcripts. Nanita, the enforcer, delivered blows: fists to the gut, kicks to the ribs, fractures hidden under baggy clothes. Jackelyn, complicit crony, photographed the torment—a damning image shared in a group chat, Mimi trussed and tear-streaked, later seized from her phone.

September 19, 2024: Mimi’s final sunset. Curled in fetal agony under a faded Frozen blanket, her heart faltered amid malnutrition’s merciless grip. Nanita discovered the corpse at dawn, no CPR, no 911—just a calculated cover-up. Wrapped in ammonia-drenched sheets to combat decay, she was stashed in the basement, then transferred to a 40-gallon plastic bin as the family fled to New Britain. Lye powder, sprinkled liberally, etched her bones while the stench seeped through vents, dismissed as “plumbing issues.” Deception layered upon deception: fake Zoom wellness checks with a stand-in girl, lies to Victor Torres about “visits to abuela in San Juan.” DCF closed cases; neighbors shrugged off odd smells.

The unraveling began with whispers. Nanita, post-breakup with Karla in early 2025, shacked up with Maria Lopez, 26, a barmaid whose pillow talk turned poisonous. Over tequila shots, he muttered about “haunting baggage,” a “heavy load” in his Acura’s trunk. Lopez, piecing nightmares, confided in friends during a September casino jaunt. One, repulsed, snapped a photo of the tote at the Clark Street derelict—a Victorian ghost house overgrown with ivy—and tipped police anonymously. October 8: SWAT breached the yard, prying the lid to reveal Mimi’s mummified form, adipocere-coated and lye-scarred, a unicorn sticker peeling from the bin’s side like a cruel joke.

Arrests exploded. Karla and Jackelyn surrendered quietly, tears and denials flowing. But Nanita? Holed up at El Mexicano Taqueria in Waterbury on October 10, scarfing tacos post-shift, he spotted the unmarked cruisers and bolted. The bodycam—worn by lead detective Reyes—captures the pandemonium: Nanita barreling through tables, overturning salsa bowls in a red spray mimicking blood. “Police! Freeze!” echoes as patrons dive for cover, phones aloft in a modern coliseum. He swings wild haymakers, connecting with Officer Lena Torres’s jaw—her yelp piercing the audio. Taser probes embed in his chest, jolting him rigid; he rips one free, charging anew. Four officers pile on, batons thumping thighs, knees pinning limbs. “I didn’t do shit to that kid!” he howls, face mashed into asphalt gritty with cigarette butts. Cuffs click; a final spit arcs toward the lens. Paramedics check bruises; Nanita’s transported snarling, the taqueria left in ruins—shattered plates crunching under boots like bones.

Released unredacted (faces of bystanders blurred, audio raw), the video’s impact is seismic. “It’s triggering but necessary,” says Dr. Elena Rojas, a child psychologist testifying for the prosecution. “Viewers see the violence Mimi endured mirrored in his resistance—unrepentant, animalistic.” Social media erupts: #JusticeForMimi trends with 500,000 posts, clips dissected frame-by-frame for “tells”—Nanita’s eyes, devoid of fear, only fury. Vigils in New Britain swell to thousands, bodycam stills projected on screens amid candle seas. Victor Torres, Mimi’s dad, watched alone in Florida: “That fight? That’s what my baby faced daily. Alone.”

Prosecutors pounced, amending charges November 5: murder with special circumstances, conspiracy, cruelty to a child—now bolstered by assault on officers during arrest, a felony tacking years. Nanita’s bond skyrocketed to $12 million; he’s isolated in Hartford Correctional, suicide watch after “rambling about ghosts.” Defense attorney Marcus Hale decries “trial by video,” filing motions to suppress: “Adrenaline-fueled editing sensationalizes a scared man.” But Judge Amelia Grant denied, calling it “probative of character—the same rage that killed Mimi.”

Systemic failures bleed through every pixel. DCF’s 15 botched interventions since 2022—virtual checks duped, tips buried—prompt Governor Ned Lamont’s emergency audit November 9. “No more ghosts in the machine,” he vowed. Stats horrify: 1,750 U.S. child abuse fatalities in 2024, CDC reports, with Connecticut’s Latino kids (like Mimi, Puerto Rican-Dominican roots) disproportionately victimized. Homeschool loopholes? A predator’s playground, per Child USA’s Marci Hamilton: “Mimi’s case is the clarion call—mandate eyes on every child.”

In court previews, the trio’s fates diverge. Karla, penning apology letters from York CI, eyes plea deals—testifying against Nanita for reduced time. Jackelyn, hardened in lockup, flips blame: “I was just the aunt.” Nanita? Defiant, smuggling notes claiming “Karla did it all.” But the bodycam betrays him—his roar echoing Mimi’s unheard cries.

As winter bites Connecticut, Mimi’s shrine on Clark Street endures: unicorns sodden, drawings fluttering. The video isn’t entertainment; it’s evidence, catharsis, catalyst. “Watch it,” urges Victor Torres at a November 10 rally, voice breaking. “See the monster. Then fight so no bin claims another angel.” In 92 seconds of chaos, a nation’s conscience awakens—will we chain the beasts among us, or let more children vanish into the night?