Edinburg police investigators allege the 30-year-old McAllen man charged in a standoff last Friday choked a woman and used a power drill to cut her chest, and court records indicate he spent six years in prison after being convicted of five counts of attempted capital murder of multiple persons nearly a decade ago.
Police arrested Robert Jason Garcia when he turned himself in Monday evening and charged him with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and assault family violence.
About 7:30 p.m. Friday, Edinburg police responded to an apartment complex on the 500 block of Sugar Road, which is just south of the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley campus.
During an hourslong standoff, police believed he was inside the apartment but later learned he had left prior to their arrival.
Lt. Reynaldo Sepulveda said Wednesday that Garcia’s mother and the woman he’s accused of assaulting believed he was inside the apartment, and Garcia, who was talking to police via a cellphone, indicated the same.
When the woman, who had been barricaded on the second story of the apartment, was safe, she told police she began to argue with Garcia who became angry and began to choke her, according to the probable cause affidavit.
The investigator said the woman said she couldn’t breathe and that Garcia used a power drill to cut her chest and hit her with a closed fist multiple times in the face and chest.
“(She) will testify that the pressure applied to her neck was so much that she felt her body going numb as she was not able to breathe,” the affidavit stated. “(She) stated Garcia also attempted to stab her with a long knife before loading a rifle and fleeing the apartment.”
The detective said he will testify that he saw multiple bruises on the woman’s face and a fresh laceration to her chest.
Edinburg police initially indicated the woman was Garcia’s wife, but the probable cause affidavit says Garcia is her boyfriend.
This is not the first time Garcia has faced allegations of violence.
Court records indicate he pleaded guilty to five counts of attempted capital murder of multiple persons on Oct. 17, 2011 and was sentenced to six years in prison.
McAllen police arrested him Dec. 8, 2010, and charged him with four counts of aggravated assault for an early morning, gang-fueled shooting three days prior near McAllen’s entertainment district, The Monitor reported at the time.
That report says Garcia was involved in a shooting in the 400 block of South Bicentennial Boulevard near a nightclub.
The criminal complaint for his arrest indicated he was a known Valluco gang member who got into an argument with a rival gang member inside a bar, the newspaper reported.
The feuding parties left the bar and the rival groups flashed gang signs and yelled at each other before the rival members got into an Expedition and drove around downtown until a red truck in which Garcia was a passenger pulled alongside, The Monitor reported.
The red truck’s driver leaned out of the window and fired four shots into the Expedition, hitting one man in the face and another in the neck.
The newspaper reported that Garcia again voluntarily went to the McAllen Police Department and said the truck’s driver, who he refused to identify, fired the four shots and handed the gun to him.
The indictment against Garcia, however, alleged that he was the shooter.
Court records don’t indicate whether he had a co-defendant and it’s unclear whether that individual was ever arrested and prosecuted.
It’s also unknown whether Garcia has any current gang affiliation.
He remained jailed Thursday on a total of $200,000 in bonds, records show.
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