After Five Years, Man 'Fit' to Stand Trial for Murder of FDNY EMT

What a difference four months makes.

After five years of hearings and delays only to be told the accused killer of a beloved FDNY emergency medical technician was not mentally fit to stand trial, the prosecution of Jose Gonzalez is back on, the Bronx district attorney said Wednesday.

Doctors at the Mid-Hudson Forensic Psychiatric Center determined Monday that Gonzalez is “no longer an incapacitated person” meaning he can be tried for the 2017 murder of EMT Yadira Arroyo, Bronx District Attorney Darcel Clark said.

“When Jose Gonzalez was deemed unfit for trial, we said this was by no means the end of this prosecution,” Clark said.

In May, a Bronx judge determined that Gonzalez was not mentally competent and ordered him to the psychiatric center.

Now that he’s been deemed fit to stand trial, Gonzalez will be returned to Rikers Island, court officials said. His next court appearance will be on Sept. 29, where prosecutors are expected to set a trial date.

No more competency issues should be raised, but defense attorneys may make other motions that could delay the start of the trial.

Gonzalez faces charges of first and second degree murder, manslaughter, vehicular manslaughter and driving while under the influence of drugs.

The 44-year-old EMT’s family members and fellow medics routinely attended the more than 50 hearings on Gonzalez’s mental competency. Dueling mental health evaluations by experts for the prosecution and the defense found him both fit and unfit to stand trial.

Arroyo, the mother of five sons, was killed on March 16, 2017, when Gonzalez, 30, who admitted he was high on PCP, jumped on the rear bumper of her ambulance in Soundview around 7:30 p.m.

She got out to investigate, and he bolted to the driver’s seat, threw the ambulance in reverse and backed over Arroyo, then put the vehicle in drive and ran over her a second time. An off-duty MTA police officer and eyewitnesses tackled him as he tried to flee.

In one 2019 hearing, prosecutors argued that Gonzalez boasted in a recorded phone call, “I can get by and I can go to the hospital and I can beat the case.” But during a psychiatric evaluation last year he claimed the Illuminati were involved in Arroyo’s death.

During an appearance on March 3, Gonzalez ranted that the prosecutor handling the case was a Satanist and blamed the victim’s EMT partner for the death.

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