U.S. decide orders psych analysis for man on chaotic United Airways flight

By Nate Raymond

BOSTON (Reuters) – A U.S. decide on Thursday ordered a psychiatric analysis be carried out to find out if a person was mentally competent to face trial after prosecutors stated he tried to open an emergency exit door on a latest Boston-bound United Airways flight after which attacked a flight attendant.

U.S. Justice of the Peace Choose Judith Dein in Boston granted a request by prosecutors for Francisco Severo Torres, 33, to be dedicated to a facility for a psychiatric analysis, saying there was motive to imagine he was mentally incompetent.

Assistant U.S. Lawyer Elianna Nuzum stated a assessment of Torres’ previous involvement with police and the courts confirmed a historical past of “fantastical” statements and considerations about his psychological well being.

She cited a passenger’s video from the Sunday flight to Boston from Los Angeles exhibiting Torres saying he was “ready for them to level the gun at me so I can present all people that I will not die” and that “they will should shoot me down in the present day.”

He later instructed regulation enforcement he wouldn’t die if stabbed within the coronary heart or shot within the chest and will come again to life, Nuzum stated. He has additionally attacked a jail guard, she stated.

Joshua Hanye, Nuzum’s court-appointed lawyer, stated his shopper objected to any analysis. Because the listening to ended, Torres shouted as guards led him out of the courtroom: “I have been renamed Balthazar by God.”

Within the Christian faith, Balthazar is the title of one of many three sensible males who visited the newborn Jesus within the Bible.

In line with prosecutors, about 45 minutes earlier than the flight landed in Boston, the flight crew acquired an alarm within the cockpit {that a} door between the primary class and coach sections of the airplane had been disarmed.

After Torres was confronted about whether or not he tampered with it, he tried to stab a flight attendant within the neck with a damaged steel spoon. Passengers then tackled him and the flight crew restrained him.

He was charged with one depend of interference and tried interference with flight crew members and attendants utilizing a harmful weapon and faces as much as life in jail if convicted.

(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston, Modifying by Alexia Garamfalvi and David Gregorio)