The Bronx father seen in the viral video punching a child and grabbing the other by his hair at a Bronx subway station was arrested on Friday. The troubled mad said he’s suffering and needs help.

Detectives spoke to 35-year-old Joshua Gilead while investigating another apparent assault. The shocking incident happened while he was sitting with his children who are 7 and 9 on a bench at the Jerome Avenue/East Fordham Road subway station around 9 p.m. last Friday.

”I punched him in the face, I punched him in the arm and I grabbed his hair because he doesn’t like it,” Gilead said.

Gilead said he was stressed out, that he struggles with mental illness and, at one point, he broke down to Pix11, admitting he needs help.

On the day he turned on his two boys, Gilead said he had been drinking and his sons were first going at each other.

”I punched him in the arm because they both were going back and forth. I just was not in my best state of mind,” Gilead said. “I love my kids every single day.”

According to police, that incident occurred around 9 p.m., Gilead went to pick up the kids, ages 7 and 9, who live with their mother in the Bronx.

Gilead allegedly hit her and one of the children, and after he left with the kids, she went to police to report the incident. Gilead, who has joint custody, took his two children from his wife’s Bronx apartment. The two reportedly have a tumultuous relationship. She went to the 48th Precinct to file a harassment complaint, and the New York City Administration for Children’s Services sent caseworkers to Gilead’s East Harlem apartment, where they observed injuries on his two children, “including hand marks and bruises on his back and a bruise on his arm.”

Prosecutors in the Manhattan District Attorney’s office asked for $30,000 bail at his arraignment, but the judge released Gilead on supervised release. After he was released, the video surfaced of the Bronx subway assault.

Gilead was identified from the video Wednesday, and detectives will now have to re-interview his children to determine when and where their injuries occurred, and what additional charges are applicable.

The NYPD and Bronx District Attorney’s Child Abuse Bureau are both investigating the Bronx subway incident. The children are now in the custody of their mother.

photo: Dan Herrick