Richard Rojas, the man who killed one woman and injured 20+ pedestrians on Thursday when he drove the wrong way up Broadway and onto sidewalks in Times Square claims he knew he needed mental health help and was trying to get it.
Rojas gave an exclusive interview to the New York Post, and said he called a mental health counselor through a veteran's center, and the man was supposed to call him back Monday, "but Monday hasn't come yet."
“I was trying to get help,” a weepy Richard Rojas claimed from Rikers Island. “I wanted to fix my life. I wanted to get a job. Get a girlfriend.”
The 26-year-old Navy veteran told the reporter he didn't remember the incident, but that he had been with his mom earlier Thursday morning.
“The last thing I remember is driving in my car,” he recalled. “Then, I woke up in the precinct . . . I was terrified.”“It was just a normal morning. I had a sandwich. … I wanted to clear my head,” Rojas said. “I told my mom, I said I was just going around.”
He told police he had smoked marijuana laced with PCP before the rampage, and tearfully apologized.
“I just want to apologize to all the victims’ families . . . I want to apologize to my mom."
He acknowledged that he did remember a few things from the drive, that he "had some thoughts," but wouldn't elaborate on what those were.
But his eyes welled with tears and his voice cracked when he was asked about the woman he killed. He sat silently.Eventually, he sobbed, slouching down in the visitor’s booth, shaking.
“I can’t believe it. I’m 26-years-old.”
Rojas faces a second degree murder charge in the death of Alyssa Elsman, 18, of Michigan, and 20 counts of attempted murder. He is on suicide watch.