Background: A law enforcement vehicle drives outside of an apartment complex off Sonterra Boulevard (KENS/YouTube) Inset: James Andrew Woerner (Bexar County Sheriff”s Office)
A man wanted for allegedly attacking and trying to extort his mother threatened and assaulted law enforcement officers as they arrived to arrest him, authorities maintain.
James Andrew Woerner, 38, is in the Bexar County Jail – where he has reportedly been since Saturday on charges including aggravated assault against a public servant and obstruction or retaliation. The case is said to have begun on Friday, when Woerner allegedly broke into his 73-year-old mother’s house in San Antonio and demanded she take out money from an ATM.
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According to court documents obtained by CBS affiliate KENS, she refused, and this caused him to become increasingly angry.
Woerner is said to have threatened to burn his mother alive before forcing her into a car, hitting her, and warning that he would crash the vehicle to kill him both, the documents allege. His mother ultimately jumped out of the moving car.
It was the suspect’s father who contacted the San Antonio Police Department, local ABC affiliate KSAT reported. His tip did not come without a warning, though, as the father reportedly detailed his son’s plan: Woerner reportedly intended to throw “nitric acid” on the responding officers.
As officers arrived the next day at the 9000 block of East Sonterra Boulevard to arrest Woerner on charges including injury to the elderly, Woerner threw an “acidic substance” at an officer, the arrest affidavit added. The “acidic substance” hit the officer but also landed on the ground – where it began to “sizzle,” KENS reported.
Woerner is also accused of throwing a Molotov cocktail at law enforcement and yelling, “everyone is going to die.” In the chaos of officers fearing contamination from the “acidic substance,” Woerner reportedly got away and barricaded himself in one of the apartment complex buildings. He was later apprehended and jailed.
Three officers suffered minor injuries but are expected to recover, authorities said.
