With a room full of EMTs watching, Bronx prosecutors said they will fight psychiatric findings that the man accused of fatally mowing down an EMT and mother of five with her own ambulance is mentally unfit for trial.
The news came at a state supreme court appearance for Jose Gonzalez, who allegedly commandeered FDNY EMT Yadira Arroyo’s ambulance, running her over with it in March 2017.
During the brief appearance in the courtroom packed with EMTs and Arroyo’s family, Gonzalez stood stone-faced sporting a long beard, braids in his hair, orange jail clothes, a shawl over his right shoulder and a pendant necklace.
At Gonzalez’s last court date it was revealed that state shrinks determined he was mentally unfit to stand trial.
But today Assistant District Attorney George Suminski said, “the people are contesting those findings and we are requesting a hearing.”
Gonzalez’s lawyer, Alice Fontier said after that in her 15 years of practicing she has never seen prosecutors contest state psychiatrists’ findings.
“There was a room full of EMTs. This is a political decision. Those were court appointed doctors who found him unfit,” Fontier said adding, “[Prosecutors] almost never contest these findings.”
Arroyo’s aunt Ali Acevedo, 61, said the tragic 44-year-old EMT’s birthday is on Saturday and she is lifted by the news of the hearings set for Jan. 17.
“At least tonight when we pray and we think of her, we can tell her that it’s moving in the right direction,” Acevedo said.
Still, Acevedo said it will be hard having their second Christmas without her.
“We try to still have the spirit of Christmas. But some of us didn’t want to put up a tree this year and last year,” Acevedo said.
“Christmas was one of her favorite seasons so we are trying to stay with the spirit of Christmas. But it’s very hard especially on the children and especially on the mother,” the aunt added.
On the day of the incident Arroyo and her partner, Monique Williams, had gotten out of the ambulance to confront Gonzalez, who had hitched a ride sitting on their ambulance bumper.
He then jumped inside the vehicle in an attempt to drive away but instead backed into Arroyo.
Gonzalez later told cops that he was high on a cocktail of PCP, marijuana and antipsychotic drugs.
