It didn\u2019t come in time for the 27-year-old Pecos High School graduate, who was suffering post-traumatic stress disorder after two tours of duty in Iraq and another in Afghanistan as a U.S. Marine Corps sniper. He died late Tuesday in a shootout with police on Interstate 25 south of Santa Fe. <\/strong><\/p>\nIt\u2019s still unclear whether the fatal shot came from state police or from Gonzales\u2019 own gun. That won\u2019t be determined until an autopsy is completed by the state Office of the Medical Investigator in Albuquerque.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was owning up to the fact that he had problems he knew he had to fix to be the best dad he could be,\u201d said Lawrence Lujan, a childhood friend who spoke on behalf of the Gonzales family. \u201cHe did his thing in Iraq, served this country, and did so honorably. God only knows what he saw. But he was affected deeply, and he was seeking treatment for PTSD.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to New Mexico State Police and Gonzales family accounts, after an argument about 10:45 p.m. Tuesday, Gonzales took his 26-year-old wife, Ashley Varela-Gonzales, who is nine months\u2019 pregnant with the couple\u2019s second child, and their 2-year-old son, Diego Jr., from a home in Pecos.<\/p>\n
State Police Officer Bryan Waller, who has been with the department for two and a half years, responded to what was called in as a kidnapping. Waller tried pulling over Gonzales\u2019 large, black Ford F-350 pickup as it headed down Interstate 25 toward Albuquerque, where Gonzales worked for the Transportation Security Administration at the Albuquerque International Sunport.<\/p>\n
Gonzales pulled over at the southbound Cerrillos Road exit.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat is when he stopped his truck and began firing at one of our officers with a pistol,\u201d Lt. Eric Garcia said. \u201cOur officer returned fire with his duty weapon (an AR-15 rifle). Both vehicles were hit, and it is unclear whether (Gonzales) was hit in the exchange before he turned his gun on himself.\u201d<\/p>\n
Garcia said after the gunfire stopped, Varela-Gonzales ran from the truck and said her husband had shot himself.<\/p>\n
retrieved from: https:\/\/defensebaseactcomp.wordpress.com\/2010\/12\/30\/ptsd-tragedy-in-sante-fe-veteran-diego-gonzales-wanted-help\/<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
back Posted by defensebaseactcomp 27-year-old veteran suffering PTSD may have fired fatal bullet himself Diego Gonzales wanted help. It didn\u2019t come in time for the 27-year-old Pecos High School graduate, who was suffering post-traumatic stress disorder after two tours of duty in Iraq and another in Afghanistan as a …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4039,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[95],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4036","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sbp"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lutzlivetotell.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4036","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lutzlivetotell.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lutzlivetotell.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lutzlivetotell.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lutzlivetotell.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4036"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lutzlivetotell.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4036\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lutzlivetotell.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4039"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lutzlivetotell.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4036"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lutzlivetotell.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4036"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lutzlivetotell.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4036"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}