By Diane Smith
Fort Worth Star-Telegram
EULESS, Texas — Jorge Brian Gonzalez claimed he was God and told a police officer he wanted to kill him.
He was high and acting crazy as Euless officer W. Tice rode with him in an ambulance to a Fort Worth hospital. He talked to cameras he thought were hidden in the interior lights. He said he could control helicopters that he believed were flying overhead.
As he was rolled into John Peter Smith Hospital on a stretcher, Gonzalez’s behavior became more threatening, according to a Feb. 21 police report obtained by the Star-Telegram.
Tice wrote that he saw Gonzalez “looking at a police officer’s pistol who had his back to Brian as he passed.
“I moved the stretcher wide of the officer,” Tice wrote in the report. “Brian looked at me and said, ‘You saw me looking at his gun. I was going to take it.’”
A doctor at JPS diagnosed Gonzalez with having homicidal thoughts and numerous drug-related disorders, according to discharge papers. He was released from the hospital on Feb. 23, one day before he turned 22.
Eight days later, Gonzalez fatally shot Euless officer David Hofer in a neighborhood park and then was killed by other officers responding to the March 1 shooting.
Police Chief Michael Brown wrote in the Euless Citizens Police Academy April newsletter that Gonzalez was a “coldblooded killer” who was going to take out as many people as possible.
“I don’t think we will ever know the motivating force that drove the suspect to kill Officer Hofer,” Brown wrote. “I do believe that his intent was to inflict even more death, damage and destruction in the park than he did.”
Brown said police continue to conduct separate investigations of the shooting. One delves deep into the shooting and will be turned over to the Tarrant County district attorney’s office. The other looks at police procedures to determine whether policies were followed.
Because those investigations are active, Euless police have declined to discuss Gonzalez’s case. But police reports and other documents provided by his father detail his son’s dark life — scarred by sexual abuse, steady drug use and petty crimes — and leave more questions than answers.
“This was a tragedy for the officer’s family, for the law enforcement community and a life so young that is lost,” said Alex del Carmen, a criminologist and executive director of Tarleton State University’s School of Criminology, Criminal Justice and Strategic Studies. “What could we have done as a society to prevent that?”
And at no time was Gonzalez’s self-destructive path more clear than on Feb. 21.
‘I Don’t Want To Hurt Someone’
Gonzalez had been detained by Euless police about 5:30 p.m. that day for erratic behavior that included walking shirtless down the middle of a street, “displaying gang signs and flipping people off,” according to a police report.
He was “rambling and agitated” and told police that he had been smoking cocaine. He later said he’d smoked methamphetamine and “ice,” a highly purified form of meth.
The drug-induced episodes were all too familiar to Gonzalez’s father, Jorge Antonio Gonzalez. Minutes before the arrest, he saw his son “running like a little boy” around the corner of the apartment complex where he lived with his father and sister.
The father knew something was wrong; when he saw his son he recalled thinking, “What am I going to find now?”
Three Euless police cars were following the younger Gonzalez.
Officers approached him and ordered him to sit on the sidewalk. He argued.
One officer pulled his Taser and again told Gonzalez to sit. He slowly complied.
Gonzalez was handcuffed — double-locked.
“I heard him say, ‘Take me because I don’t want to hurt someone or do something bad,’ ” the father said.
Riding in the back seat of a patrol car on his way to the Euless Jail, Gonzalez beat his head against the cage divider and said he would do so “until he killed himself,” the report states.
Booked into jail, Gonzalez screamed, pounded on the door and threw his bed mat.
His behavior was not surprising; a jailer noted that Gonzalez had been to the jail before and was known to have psychotic episodes when intoxicated.
An ER doctor who evaluated Gonzalez when he arrived at the hospital wrote in his discharge summary that Gonzalez had exhibited “agitation, substance abuse, homicidal ideation, substance induced mood disorder and drug dependence.”
He was examined by a paramedic, and officers took him to JPS Hospital.
“As I rode to the hospital in the ambulance with Brian, he rambled on and talked to the cameras he believed to be hidden in the interior lights,” Tice wrote. “Brian told me that he was God and he talked of taking my gun away and killing me with it. He claimed to be able to control helicopters as they flew overhead.”
Gonzalez was checked into the psychiatric unit on the 10th floor at JPS.
Waiting in a hospital room, Gonzalez cycled from “angry to happy and back to angry,” according to the police report, and said that “when he is released he wants to have police kick in his door and kill him.”
An emergency room doctor who evaluated Gonzalez when he arrived at the hospital wrote in his discharge summary that Gonzalez had exhibited “agitation, substance abuse, homicidal ideation, substance induced mood disorder and drug dependence.”
After coming down from his high, Gonzalez was discharged on Feb. 23, and a follow-up visit was scheduled for April 5 at a JPS behavioral health clinic in Arlington.
When discharged he was given prescriptions for the antipsychotic olanzapine (Zyprexa) and citalopram (Celexa), which is used to treat depression, records show.
Gonzalez would often trade his prescription drugs for ice, his father said. It was when his son was high on ice and other drugs that his behavior turned bizarre.
“When he mixed ice with amphetamines, methamphetamine or cocaine, it’s the same as mixing detergent with Windex or whatever. … It explodes,” the father said.
‘I Wanted Him To Go To Jail’
On Feb. 29, Gonzalez was arrested again, this time on a public intoxication charge after officers responded to a theft call made by the father, who said his son and a friend, Jorge Gutierrez, had stolen money and were high, according to a police report.
Standing near the bench in J.A. Carr Park where his son and Gutierrez were arrested, the father said, he approached them as they sat in his daughter’s car, stolen money in hand.
As he encountered the two, he recalled, he said, “ ‘Get out of the car.’ … They got out of the car and I said, ‘Give me the money.’ ”
But they kept walking faster, then running. He followed, while calling 911, pleading for help from a dispatcher.
“I was very angry,” the elder Gonzalez said.
Four officers arrived and Brian Gonzalez told police that he was on cocaine and had not slept in a few days. An officer determined that Gonzalez was intoxicated and “a danger to himself and the public.”
Gonzalez also had blood on his clothing and told officers he had cut his hand while “breaking out the windows of his own vehicle.”
The report notes that at a nearby auto repair business, several vehicles had broken windows with “several areas of fresh blood,” but it was not determined whether Gonzalez and Gutierrez were suspects.
Gutierrez was also arrested on public intoxication, and on an outstanding Tarrant County warrant for failing to appear at a hearing related to a pending charge of assault of a family member. He remains held without bail in the Tarrant County Jail in the assault case. He declined a request to be interviewed.
The father said he wanted his son arrested on a theft charge, which he believed would carry a more serious penalty than public intoxication. He said that the two stole about $400 and that police handed him $73 at the park.
“I wanted him to go to jail so he could get better,” Jorge Gonzalez said. “I wanted him to go to jail one or two years.”
‘He Was Assassinated’
Gonzalez spent the night in jail and appeared before Municipal Judge Lacy Britten on the morning of March 1. He was released after agreeing to a sentence of 20 hours of community service.
Because he had been arrested on a misdemeanor charge, public intoxication, she could not sentence him to more time in jail.
It was not the first time Britten had seen Gonzalez in her courtroom. And though she could not speak specifically about his case, she said many people struggling with mental issues and substance abuse are regulars in city jails. In Euless, she said, there’s a rehab facility nearby, but you can’t make addicts go there and most have no interest in doing so.
“It is a complex issue with no simple, easy solution,” Britten said.
About four hours after his release and after breaking into a Euless house and stealing guns, Gonzalez hid along a creek in J.A. Carr Park, not far from the park bench where he had been arrested the day before. He fired a few random shots, only he knew at what, which prompted calls to 911.
Hofer responded to the call and approached Gonzalez, who opened fire, fatally wounding the officer. Other officers returned fire, killing Gonzalez.
An attorney representing other officers involved in the shootout said Hofer did not pull his weapon on Gonzalez.
“He was assassinated while his gun was holstered and while asking the suspect to show his hands,” said Randy Moore, an attorney with the Texas Municipal Patrolman’s Association, which represents officers.
Toxicology reports to determine whether Gonzalez was high at the time of the shooting have not been completed, but family members say he had probably been smoking meth and ice.
The father is anxious to find out not only what drugs were in his system, but how many times he was shot.
Hofer, 29, was the first officer to die in the line of duty in Tarrant County since 2010.
The outpouring of support for Hofer, his family and Euless police was overwhelming. Memorials were set up at the park and the Euless police station. Thousands attended a March 5 memorial service at Bedford’s Pennington Field, where Hofer was remembered as an officer who “led with his heart.”
Another service was held the following day in New York, where Hofer served before moving to North Texas in 2014.
Gonzalez’s funeral was March 8, before a small gathering of friends and family at Arlington’s Trinity Baptist Church.
His father stood alongside the casket, begging his dead son to respond.
“What got into your head?” the father pleaded, in Spanish. “Why my baby? Why?”
Pastor Enrique Gonzalez, who leads the church’s Spanish-language congregation, described how Brian loved soccer, drawing pictures and eating Argentine milanesa steaks.
Family friend Judith Balleza started a collection to help the Gonzalezes pay funeral costs.
“I helped them because my family and I have known the family for years,” Balleza said. “I understood that the situation that the family was involved in wasn’t seen good by others. I still decided to help them, because no matter what, we ain’t no one to be judging others.”
Veronica Castillo, a family friend from Argentina, said that growing up, Brian was a sweet, playful boy.
“He was lovable,” Castillo said. “He was so proud of his daddy.”
But his life changed forever in 2002, when a friend offered to baby-sit.
‘I Can Watch Your Son’
Jorge Gonzalez came from Argentina to the U.S. on a visitor’s visa in 2000; his wife and two children followed in 2001.
Jorge Gonzalez said his wife didn’t like North Texas and soon returned to Argentina, leaving him to raise his daughter, Jennifer, then 1, and son, then 7.
“My idea was that they will become something in this country because things are very hard in South America,” the father said.
He believed he needed to work long hours to provide for his children, but he now sees flaws in that parenting approach.
“We believe we are good parents and that’s not the case, because for working so much we leave our children adrift,” he said.
Because he often worked nights, friends would help watch his children.
One such friend was Guillermo Raul Valle, a man they had met at the Arlington church they attended, Jorge Gonzalez said.
“He talked of God and preached,” Jorge Gonzalez recalled. “He said: ‘If you want, I can watch your son.’ ”
Valle, who had a reputation of befriending immigrants, sexually abused Brian on multiple occasions in October 2002, according to court records.
Jorge Gonzalez recalled how his son would tell him he didn’t want to stay with Valle but thought nothing of it, a memory that fills him with tears.
In March 2005 after seeing Valle driving a pickup, Brian Gonzalez made an outcry to his father.
The father was angry and confused and unsure what to do. He wanted to hurt Valle, badly. But on his way to find him, Jorge Gonzalez said, he drove up on a car wreck in Arlington.
He stopped and approached the officers.
“Crying, I got out and told them,” he said.
Records show that Valle was arrested in April 2005 and went to trial in July 2007.
Gonzalez, 13 at the time, testified at Valle’s trial.
A jury convicted Valle on one count of aggravated sexual assault of a child under 14, two counts of indecency with a child by contact and one count of indecency with a child by exposure. Valle was sentenced to life in prison for the aggravated sexual assault and additional time for the other convictions.
He is not eligible for parole until July 2037.
Because Gonzalez was a victim of sexual abuse, the Department of Homeland Security granted him a U-Visa, a temporary status for crime victims that allowed him and his family to stay in the United States. The father said he is now trying to get a work permit.
Arrangements were made for Gonzalez to see a counselor to work through the issues that came with the sexual abuse, but Jorge Gonzalez said that because of his job, getting his son to the sessions was difficult.
At home, the father and son didn’t talk about the sexual abuse, as if it had never happened.
Hindsight is painful for the father, who knows he should have done more.
“I never asked my son what happened,” Jorge Gonzalez said. “Out of shame. I don’t know. … It is a pain I carried for many years. He never talked about it. I never asked.”
The demons inside his son grew stronger, Jorge Gonzalez said.
Struggled In And Out Of School
School was never easy for Gonzalez, especially as the family moved around, sometimes because the father could not pay rent.
In 2005, a withdrawal form from Arlington’s Webb Elementary School showed that from Sept. 21 to Dec. 2, Gonzalez was absent 11 times and was failing all courses except social studies.
From 2006 to 2011, he bounced across the Arlington, Fort Worth and Hurst-Euless-Bedford school districts, enrolling and withdrawing, then over again.
He attended at least seven schools in those five years, including Meadowbrook Middle School (twice) in Fort Worth and Metro Opportunity, an alternative school, also in Fort Worth.
From Fort Worth the family moved to Euless, where Gonzalez attended two junior highs and an alternative school in the H-E-B district in 2010-11. He enrolled in August 2011 in the district’s Keys Learning Center, a school for at-risk students.
While at Keys, he appeared at least twice before Judge Britten on charges of failure to attend school.
He was withdrawn from Keys in February 2012 to be home-schooled, documents show.
His father said his son tried to learn at home but never graduated.
Instead, he drifted, spending his time lifting weights, tinkering with cars and using drugs. He would try to help his father at his job as a maintenance worker at their apartment complex, but mostly he followed him around. Sometimes Gonzalez would sell ice cream from a vending truck they operated.
Family and friends say Gonzalez had a gift for drawing and when in jail, often sold artwork to other inmates to earn cash for the commissary.
The constant drug abuse, his father said, “destroyed” his son.
One sketch by Gonzalez shows two theater masks with the words “Smile now, cry later.”
Another depicts his obsession with drugs.
Family members said Gonzalez smoked marijuana and popped “mollies,” a toxic mix of lab-created chemicals. Then meth and ice — sometimes cocaine.
The constant drug abuse, his father said, “destroyed” his son.
Beginning in 2011, Gonzalez was arrested for a variety of crimes, including minor in possession, possession of drug paraphernalia, aggravated assault and theft.
His behavior became increasingly erratic.
An inmate disciplinary report from the Tarrant County Sheriff’s Department in October 2011 said Gonzalez “yelled across the dayroom during cleaning after dinner, calling another inmate a bald-headed mother f-----.”
An undated entry he made into a notebook reads: “F--- the free world I’m trapped in some evil s---!
The arrests continued in 2013 and 2014, for DWI and assault.
But none of it compared to his last year, when his behavior became more violent and he spent most of his time high, in jail or in hospitals.
‘I’m Seeing Spiders’
On Feb. 9, 2015, Fort Worth police responded to a domestic disturbance call at an apartment where the family was living. Gonzalez’s sister said she and her brother had argued and he punched her. A family violence packet was completed by the officers. Gonzalez had left the scene before officers arrived.
On March 14, Gonzalez was arrested on accusations that he struck his sister with a board or club. A protective order was issued against him on March 15. Records show he was in the Tarrant County Jail from March 20 to April 27.
Jennifer Gonzalez said she and her brother shared a close bond that was tested by conflict. After her brother’s death, she said, she spent days “just crying.” She keeps a picture of him by her bed and is protective of his memory.
Gonzalez spent June 25 to July 15 in the Tarrant County Jail for assault of a family member and terroristic threat of a family/household.
On Aug. 5, he was again charged with terroristic threat of a family/household, and another emergency protective order was issued against him. The order prohibited him from going within 200 yards of Trinity High School, where his sister attended, and the family’s apartment.
In November, his father said, Gonzalez was again admitted to JPS Hospital because of hallucinations. At the time, Gonzalez told a family friend, Mariana Nanez, that he wanted to quit using.
The father said he would let his son stay with the family even after the protective orders were issued.
On Aug. 16, Gonzalez was taken by ambulance to Texas Health Harris Methodist Hospital H-E-B in Bedford, according to hospital records. He told ER workers that he had been drinking and that he was “out of his mind” and wanted to detox from his medications.
He said, “I’m seeing spiders,” according to hospital records.
A doctor wrote that Brian did not “show signs of suicidal or homicidal ideation” and that “I believe he is okay for discharge.”
He was given antipsychotic medicine, advised to follow up at Texas Health Springwood Hospital, a nearby behavioral health center, and released.
Another visit to a hospital, documented on Instagram, occurred after Gonzalez said he was “smoking too much” K2, a drug with side effects that include paranoia and panic attacks.
In November, his father said, his son was again admitted to JPS Hospital because of hallucinations. At the time, Gonzalez told a family friend, Mariana Nanez, that he wanted to quit using.
He never had a chance, she said.
“It was stronger than him,” Nanez said.
Later that month he was arrested on a theft charge.
He spent Nov. 18 to Jan. 11 in the Tarrant County Jail on convictions of terroristic threat of a family member, theft and criminal mischief, records show.
His father noted that his son spent his last Christmas behind bars.
After being released in January, Gonzalez returned to the tidy, one-bedroom apartment in Euless shared by his family.
Jennifer slept in the bedroom; Gonzalez and his father slept in the small living room on mattresses that were side by side.
Jorge Gonzalez prayed his son would be better.
But when Gonzalez’s life continued to unravel, the father turned to Euless police. Jorge Gonzalez estimated he called Euless police eight to 10 times between mid-January and Feb. 29.
“All of the Euless police knew him,” including Hofer, the father said.
Euless police have acknowledged that officers were familiar with Gonzalez but would not confirm the number of calls they had received.
“I would call the police because I would see that he wasn’t well and I couldn’t bear it. You understand? It bothered me to see how he was — that’s why I called the police.”
Looking back, the father said he wished he would haven taken his son to JPS on Feb. 29.
“Sometimes I ask myself if I hadn’t called the police would my son be alive?” he said.
His daily reminder is a makeshift memorial that sits near where his son slept. His ashes in an urn. There’s a soccer trophy, hats he wore, his cellphone, workout weights and candles.
“If I could tell him something, I would ask him to forgive me for not being a good father and not being with him during his most difficult moments,” the father said.
Tuesdays are especially hard, the father said.
It was on a Tuesday that his son killed the officer and died. His funeral was on a Tuesday. He received his son’s ashes on a Tuesday.
He’s angry at times, but more often tired and remorseful.
On a recent trip to the Euless police station seeking documents, he offered a quiet apology to a records clerk.
“Every day it’s the same,” Jorge Gonzalez said. “How did this happen? How could I have helped him?”
He regularly wanders around J.A. Carr Park — searching — but for what he’s not sure.
A memorial for officer Hofer remains at the park entrance.
Plastic flowers and an angel figurine sit at a tree, near where Gonzalez was shot to death.
Standing near the park bench where Gonzalez was arrested on Feb. 29, Jorge Gonzalez said he remembers his son, as he was being handcuffed, saying to him, “Vos me quitaste lo que más quería (you took away what I loved the most).”
“Those were the last words of my son and to this day I don’t know what it was,” the father said. “That was the last time I saw my son alive.”
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