Tortoise attack: Judge calls suspect “extreme danger,” orders him to stay away from preschool.
Tortoise at preschool bludgeoned, stabbed
SAN JOSE >> A man charged with brutally attacking a preschool’s beloved pet tortoise late last month and, after his arrest, returning to the school, was arraigned on animal abuse and other charges and ordered to stay away from the animal’s home for the foreseeable future.
George Robles, 40, was charged earlier this month and made his first in-person court appearance Feb. 24 following a series of delays that involved him repeatedly refusing transport from the Main Jail to the adjacent Hall of Justice, starting with his initial arraignment date Feb. 3.
Robles was charged with six felonies covering animal abuse, commercial burglary and vandalism. Deputy District Attorney Blake Hannah asked that Robles be remanded without bail, but Judge Vincent Chiarello said he could not grant that because the violence charged against Robles did not involve a human victim.
Chiarello set Robles’ bail at $165,000. The judge also granted the stay-away order barring Robles from the Play ‘N’ Learn Preschool in East San Jose, where the tortoise, named Michaelangelo, lives.
Chiarello said in court Wednesday “there’s an obvious danger to the staff or anyone else who might have been present” at the preschool and described Robles as an “extreme danger to the public” before issuing the order.
The stay-away order was greeted with relief Wednesday by preschool co-owner Tammy Lariz, who has installed a new security system inside and outside. Still, she said, “I just hope it helps.”
Not only had the intruder broken into the preschool and attacked the tortoise, bludgeoning and stabbing him, but he also allegedly came back the next day. The preschool director, who arrived a half hour before the children, apparently scared him away.
By then, however, the tortoise was safe with a veterinarian, who performed surgery to remove a wooden stake from its back. The vet is keeping him until he recovers and the preschool is ready to take him back.
“They’re taking such good care of him,” Lariz said. “I just want him to be safe and healthy before we worry about getting him back. We just want to make sure he’s safe.”
Deputy Public Defender Jessica Burt-smith asked for the court to conduct a mental health assessment for Robles, which Chiarello scheduled for March 11.
Burt-smith also objected to Chiarello citing statements Robles made to investigators that were written in a police report, including Robles appearing to take credit for, and pride, in attacking the tortoise.
“Mr. Robles was not in his right mind on the day he was being questioned,” Burt-smith said, adding that Robles has expressed willingness to receive mental health services.
Robles first was arrested the morning of Jan. 30 near the preschool after a neighbor saw a man yelling and throwing things in the preschool playground and called police.
Summoned to the school, Lariz discovered Michelangelo near his miniature log cabin, bleeding after being impaled with 6-inch shards from a wooden garden gate post into the back of the tortoise’s shell. She also found a rake handle shoved between the reptile’s head and leg, which she pulled out, and shattered glass from flood lamps that had been unscrewed and broken on the animal’s back.
Michelangelo, a decades-old 65-pound African sulcata, was rushed to receive emergency veterinary care from Dr. Tal Solomon, and continues to be on the mend.
According to San Jose police and the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office, Robles initially was booked and placed on a 72hour mental health evaluation. He soon was released under the county’s $0 emergency bail schedule for misdemeanors and certain lowlevel felonies, aimed at reducing jail crowding during the COVID-19 pandemic. Prosecutors say a magistrate judge denied an officer’s request to review Robles’ bail.
A little over a day later, in the early-morning hours of Feb. 1, preschool Director Yvonne Co arrived and said she saw Robles inside the school grounds. He apparently had been holding a brick before fleeing.
A police investigation later determined that Robles broke in through a window and spent the previous night at the school, took two ipads worth about $1,000 and caused $950 in damage to the building.
The tortoise’s blankets had also been yanked from his enclosure, a garden where he was kept after the preschool acquired Michelangelo from a rescue program four years ago. Much of Robles’ alleged intrusion was captured on security video.
Robles, who in the police report was described as living in a van nearby on Dobern Avenue, was arrested a second time that afternoon by officers with the SJPD mobile crisis response team. But an in-field evaluation found him ineligible for another mental health hold, and he was booked into jail.
After his Feb. 1 arrest, a police investigation linked Robles to a break-in at the preschool three days before the attack on Michelangelo, in which $1,850 in electronics and other items were stolen. Robles reportedly admitted to that earlier break-in during a police interview; police said he claimed he gave the stolen items to other unhoused people.