Inset: Heyco Cruz Linares (Arlington Police Department). Background: Police investigate the crime scene at a home in Arlington, Texas (KXAS/YouTube).
A man faces serious accusations in Texas after police say he knocked on an officer”s patrol car with a knife and admitted he had killed his children.
Heyco Cruz Linares, 27, has been charged with capital murder in the death of his 5-year-old son, the Arlington Police Department announced. He also faces charges of evading and terroristic threat against a peace officer.
Police said additional charges “are pending the outcome of the investigation.”
On Wednesday, just before midnight, a patrol officer was parked at a gas station in the 1400 block of North Cooper Street in Arlington.
According to police, a car pulled up to the patrol car, a man got out, “went up to the officer’s driver side window, and immediately hit the window with a knife.”
The officer reportedly “reversed out of the parking spot and moved a safe distance away” and then put on his overhead lights, got out of his car, “and gave the man multiple commands to drop the knife.”
The man — later identified as Linares — allegedly did not listen. He “re-entered his vehicle and drove away,” the law enforcement agency said.
The officer returned to his car and tried to pull the suspect over, but Linares allegedly did not stop. With help from the Grand Prairie Police Department, law enforcement were able to bring the car to a stop and take Linares into custody.
As officers arrested Linares, he reportedly “made comments that he’d killed his kids at their apartment in Arlington.” The officers learned that the apartment was on the 1600 block of South Cooper Street “and relayed that information to other officers, who immediately responded.”
The officers entered that apartment “and found two young boys inside with wounds consistent with a knife attack.”
The children — a 5-year-old and a 2-year-old — were rushed to a local hospital. The older child was pronounced dead. The younger child remained hospitalized as of Thursday and was listed as “stable.”
A motive for the alleged attack is unclear. Police told area Fox affiliate KDFW that the children’s mother was at work at the time.
Arlington Police Chief Al Jones added that incidents like these “weigh very heavily” on officers.
“A lot of our officers have young kids around this age, and I can tell you that it is going to have a long-lasting impact on them, especially when you’re dealing with young kids that age,” he added. “We are working with our peer counselors and our chaplain to make sure that we’re providing check-ins with our officers who responded there, because this is a real tragic situation, and we want to make sure that we’re taking care of our officers in this situation.”
