Dallas man begged for mental help before standoff that ended with him naked on highway, gf says, Crime, Dallas News
Dallas man begged for mental help before standoff that ended with him naked on highway, gf says
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Rojelio Villarreal Gonzales
Updated Friday: Revised to include details from Rojelio Villarreal Gonzales’ gf.
The gf of a man who led officers on a pursue and standoff Tuesday says it happened after he was turned away from a hospital, where he begged for mental help.
The incident with 35-year-old Rojelio Villarreal Gonzales embarked when someone spotted his gf screaming for help from the bed of her pickup, Forney police said.
It ended peacefully several hours later.
Gonzales was naked when he was taken into custody just after 9:50 a.m. on a charge of evading arrest and for numerous outstanding warrants.
Forney police are investigating other possible charges related to domestic violence.
Gonzales’ gf, 32-year-old Heidi Levens of Mesquite, said all of it could have been avoided had he gotten the help he needed for depression, bipolar disorder and paranoid schizophrenia.
“But they just sent him on his way, didn’t give him help, nothing,” Levens said. “I dreamed people to know that this person who got arrested and was evading arrest was a good man.”
Dallas County sheriff’s spokeswoman Melinda Urbina acknowledged that Gonzales has a mental health condition and was “having an scene” during the standoff.
Levens said Gonzales has a history of becoming violent when he doesn’t receive decent care for his mental problems. But when his temper is under control, she said, he’s the person she turns to, who helps her children go from failing to passing grades in school.
She said Gonzales has been on his own since age 14. His mother died of leukemia when he was six and his father was imprisoned before he died, Levens said.
He spent part of his life living on the streets, stealing pizzas when he didn’t have food.
“He’s been going through so much from a youthful age, and I see his heart, I see him,” Levens said.
On Tuesday, authorities in Forney received calls about the disturbance in the four hundred block of Woodcrest Way, near U.S. Highway eighty and Pinson Road, just before eight a.m.
A caller said a woman leaped from the truck before it left the scene.
The woman, Levens, contacted police and said her beau, Gonzales, took the yellow Dodge truck to sell it for parts, Forney police said.
Officers very first attempted to stop Gonzales as he traveled west on U.S. 80.
Gonzales hit the brakes near Collins Road near the boundary inbetween Sunnyvale and Mesquite but refused orders to get out of the truck, police said.
Pics from TV demonstrated police with weapons trained on the pickup.
The Dallas County Sheriff’s Department and Mesquite’s SWAT team assisted.
After Mesquite SWAT negotiated with Gonzales, he surrendered and lay down on the highway, KDFW-TV (Channel Four) reports.
