DONNA — Authorities have detailed harrowing incidents in the case of a former University of Texas Rio Grande Valley police officer who was arrested in uniform last year on charges of official oppression and aggravated assault, and who was again arrested Wednesday.
Police documents related to those arrests describe three domestic violence incidents, two that happened while 29-year-old Ramon Regalado Jr. of Donna was a police officer and one that happened after he’d been suspended by the university.
In a release Wednesday, the Donna Police Department said it arrested Regalado and charged him with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and terroristic threat (family violence).
“It is alleged that Regalado choked his estranged wife, and on multiple occasions threatened her with a weapon,” the release read. “Regalado, who is a former UTRGV Police Officer, is alleged to have also made threats against law enforcement according to the victim.”
That previous arrest, on Nov. 14 of last year, directly preceded Regalado’s departure from the university’s police force.
A UTRGV spokesperson said Wednesday that Regalado was put on leave for an internal investigation the day after that arrest and that Regalado resigned from the force on Dec. 7, while the investigation was underway.
McAllen police records related to that arrest describe an incident between Regalado and his wife at the Home2 Suites by Hilton hotel on Ware Road in McAllen.
Regalado’s wife told police that she had gone to the hotel because of marital difficulties. She said Regalado pushed his way into her room, questioned her fidelity, ripped her shirt, choked her and placed his gun against her waistline before managing to escape the room.
Hotel staff called police after the woman fled the room in a state of panic, saying her husband wanted to kill her. Employees hid her in a storage closet.
When police arrived, they found Regalado in full uniform, with his firearm and stun gun holstered. He told police he was involved in the disturbance and said he and his wife had been arguing about why she was at the hotel.
Police subtly convinced him to remove his gun belt, noted a significant inconsistency in the story he told them and eventually placed him under arrest.
The director of UTRGV’s office for Victim Advocacy and Prevention told police Regalado’s wife had reported him making threats against her, and that she paid for the hotel room to serve as a temporary shelter for the woman and her daughter.
Regalado and his wife’s daughter, who was also at the hotel, told police her mother had been assaulted and played them an audio recording from a previous incident in which Regalado had been verbally aggressive.
Regalado was booked in the Hidalgo County Jail on Nov. 15 and released the following day.
According to documents related to Regalado’s arrest last week, Regalado’s wife contacted police on Nov. 22 about an assault she said occurred just four days after that incident in the McAllen hotel.
Regalado’s wife told police that night Regalado said he wanted to kill himself before leaving the bedroom they were in. The woman locked the door behind him.
“The victim stated the defendant grabbed a kitchen knife and attempted to open the bedroom door with the knife,” records stated.
Eventually Regaldo entered the bedroom and the wife called a suicide hotline.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” the woman told police Regalado said.
He then grabbed her neck and pinned her against the wall, the records allege, choking her and opening a pocket knife with his other hand.
The woman also told police about another incident she said happened late in the summer of 2021, in which Regalado threatened her with a screwdriver.
Jail records indicate Regalado was released on Thursday.
