AUSTIN (KXAN) — At the Frontier Valley Mobile Home Park in East Austin, the news is quickly spreading that one of their neighbors is the person police believe is responsible for the string of rock attacks on Interstate 35.
On Wednesday evening, Victor Ciatia says police swarmed the mobile home park, he now knows why. “I never thought that something was going to happen over there. I was just watching TV and then suddenly I just heard this big boom and it scared everybody.
Ciatia says Patrick Johnson, 59, typically kept to himself and seemed like a normal neighbor.
“He is a quiet person. We don’t bother him. He don’t bother us. We’re just on our own mind,” says Ciatia.
Other neighbors KXAN spoke with didn’t have the same image of Johnson.
“The rock throwing does not come as a surprise. This man is mentally unstable. He’s not in the right frame of mind,” says Gilberto Rendon Sr. says.
For Rendon, ever since Johnson was arrested in 2007 on a charge of sexual assault of a child, he has been keeping a close eye on him.
“We’ve been trying forever and ever to try to get him to get out of there, or even get him arrested for the incidents that have been going on,” continues Rendon. “The people have come to me that this man Patrick Johnson was going around giving the kids in the neighborhood candy and ice cream and trying to lure them into his trailer.”
Rendon says he’s been working with police to make sure his community stays safe and no children become targets.
