Father bit out his son’s eye, police say

A Bakersfield man with a history of drug abuse remained jailed Monday after allegedly biting out one of his 4-year-old son’s eyes and mutilating the other.

Angel Vidal Mendoza, 34, has been charged with mayhem, torture, child cruelty and inflicting an injury to a child in the alleged attack on his son.

Bakersfield police said in a search warrant that the child told investigators, “My daddy ate my eyes.”

Police said Mendoza appeared to be under the influence of PCP after the April 28 incident.

After two neighbors found the injured child in the apartment he shared with his father, witnesses told authorities that a man in a wheelchair who turned out to be Mendoza was in the backyard of a nearby vacant residence hacking his own legs with an ax, police said.

Mendoza was arrested a week later.

Kern County Jail officials said they did not know whether Mendoza had hired an attorney, and online court records do not indicate whether he is represented.

Mendoza is scheduled to appear in court Wednesday, when a date for his preliminary hearing in the case is expected to be set.

Doctors at Mercy Hospital, where the boy is being treated, said it was unclear whether the child would regain vision in his right eye or be permanently blind.

Mendoza and the child’s 23-year-old mother, Desirae Marie Bermudez, were charged with being under the influence of PCP in 2006 and pleaded no contest to child cruelty charges in that case, court records show.

Mendoza has a criminal record going back to 1997 that includes convictions for selling alcohol to a minor, battery and check forgery.