Mental health test ordered for man who disrupted L.A.-to-Boston flight
A man charged with attacking a flight attendant and attempting to open an airliner’s emergency door on a cross-country flight over the weekend remained in custody Thursday after a federal court ordered him to undergo a mental health evaluation.
Francisco Severo Torres, 33, of Leominster, Mass., was arrested Sunday when United Airlines Flight 2609 from Los Angeles landed in Boston. A magistrate judge postponed the detention hearing until after the mental health evaluation is completed.
Torres is charged with a felony related to interfering with flight crew members using a dangerous weapon. If convicted, he could be sentenced to life in prison. Prosecutors say he tried to stab the crew member with a modified metal spoon.
Prosecutor Elianna Nuzum requested the evaluation, saying Torres’ police record and his actions on the plane indicate he is mentally ill and unable to understand the court proceedings.
Torres objected to the evaluation through his federal public defender, Joshua Hanye.
Handcuffed and wearing a beige prison overall, Torres asked whether he could address the court, saying “the God, the Son and the Holy Spirit say that I should,” but relented when the magistrate judge advised against it.
As Torres left the courtroom Thursday, he said “My name is still Balthazar,” a name he used during a rant on the plane. His attorney declined to comment after the hearing.
The plane was about 45 minutes from landing in Boston when the crew received an alarm that a side door on the aircraft had been disarmed, according to court documents. One flight attendant noticed the door’s locking handle had been moved. Another flight attendant had seen Torres near the door and believed he had moved the handle.
Cabin pressure during flight prevents airplane doors from opening.
The crew told the captain that Torres was a threat and that the plane should land as soon as possible, authorities said.
Lisa Olsen, who was sitting a few rows in front of Torres with her husband and daughter, recalled how he grew defensive when confronted by a flight attendant about the door. He started asking whether the crew had cameras, how they knew it was him.
Francisco Severo Torres, 33, of Massachusetts was arrested Sunday at Boston Logan International Airport after assaulting a crew member and trying to open the airplane’s door during the flight, authorities say.
After the flight attendant left him, Torres started loudly rambling that his father was Dracula, which prompted passengers to try to calm him down. He also said he wanted to be shot so he could be reincarnated, Olsen said.
In video taken by Olsen, an agitated Torres can be heard threatening to kill people and promising a bloodbath.
“I will kill every man on this plane,” he says.
He also asks where the pilots were diverting the plane.
“Because wherever it is, there’s going to be a bloodbath everywhere,” he says in the video.
Torres then jumped over another seated passenger and stood in the aisle, saying, “I’m taking over the plane.” A passenger behind him stood up and said, “Don’t even think about it.” Torres then started running down the aisle toward the front of the plane.
He then confronted a male flight attendant and started punching him. The flight attendant felt the metal spoon in Torres’ hand hit him on his shirt collar and tie three times, according to court documents.
Simik Ghookasian, one of the passengers who helped restrain the suspect, said, “Everything just exploded in a few seconds.”
More than a dozen male passengers rushed down the aisle after Torres. He was subdued by several passengers and restrained until the plane landed.
“All of a sudden you hear a huge thud because they grabbed him and restrained him on the ground. There were four to six guys on top of him, restraining him,” Olsen said, adding that her 17-year-old daughter was crying because she thought “that we were going to crash.”
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For the next 30 minutes, passengers took turns holding him down. At one point, Torres broke free from zip ties that were on his hands and ankles but they kept him down, Olsen said. It reminded her of the passengers who fought back against hijackers on 9/11, saying that it “still gives me chills.”
Torres told investigators that he went into the airplane’s bathroom and broke a spoon in half to make a weapon, prosecutors said in court documents. They said Torres told authorities that he wanted to open the door so that he could jump out and that he knew opening the door would kill many people.
United Airlines said no one was injured.
Torres spent time in mental health facilities, according to lawsuits he filed. A local police chief says officers have dealt with him several times since 2014, mostly over family issues and mental health episodes.
Last year, officers responded to a reported disturbance at Torres’ home and found him outside in his underwear. He told them he was protesting climate change. Leominster Police Chief Aaron Kennedy told the Associated Press that Torres was charged in 2017 over a domestic incident with his mother but that the charges were later dropped.
On Feb. 25, Torres visited a local barbershop and told patrons that he wanted to “die tonight at midnight” and wanted to get shot by 12 people with an AR-15 two times at point blank, according to a police report.
Kennedy said it wasn’t until he saw the video from the flight last weekend that they realized it was the same person, and that Torres’ outburst at the barbershop included “the same rhetoric you heard on the airplane.”
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