NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE — A man was found bloodied and intoxicated on top of a semi-truck parked at a Murfreesboro Pike gas station in the early morning hours of Tuesday, May 5, after allegedly breaking into a construction equipment rental business across the street, causing extensive damage, and then barricading himself inside a manager’s office before fleeing.
Metro Nashville Police Department responded shortly after 4 a.m. to the 1300 block of Murfreesboro Pike on reports of a disorderly individual covered in blood climbing on top of a semi. Officers found Jose Manuel Gomez, 45, on top of the truck with a severe laceration to his right hand — consistent with breaking out windows at Herc Rentals, a construction equipment business directly across the street. Surveillance video captured Gomez at the scene. At the hospital, Gomez admitted to taking a narcotic prior to the incident.
What Happened at Herc Rentals
Josh Eatherly, a manager at Herc Rentals, described the scene to authorities and media after staff arrived early and found the damage. “I’ve only seen the video of him coming up here and busting out the front door, and like I said, he’s just stumbling in, looked like he didn’t know where he was at or what he was wanting to do. He was just trying to create chaos,” Eatherly said.
According to Eatherly, Gomez grabbed a piece of metal, threw it through the front door, entered the building, went into the manager’s office, and began pulling out drawers. “He actually grabbed a piece of metal out there, threw it through, came through the door, proceeded to go in here, look around, ended up going into our manager’s office, where he proceeded to pull out drawers, trying to see whatever he could grab,” Eatherly said.
Gomez then broke a window in the manager’s office rather than exiting through the door he had already broken. Eatherly said Gomez appeared to believe he was trapped. “I believe somehow he thought he was barricaded in our manager’s office, even though the door was not locked, so he broke the handle off the door, barricaded himself in there, and I guess assumed the only way out was to bust the window,” Eatherly said. Surveillance footage showed Gomez hopping the fence and running to the gas station across the street, leaving a trail of blood. “You can track the blood from our manager’s office all the way to the gas station where he went,” Eatherly said.
The incident also cost the business hours of productivity. “My manager got here at 6, I got here shortly after, and for the first two or three hours out of our day, we were having to deal with the police, deal with the security footage, call the window company to get them back out here and replace this, and it took up a lot of time out of our day,” Eatherly said.
Charges and Immigration Hold
Gomez is being held at the Davidson County Downtown Detention Center on a $10,000 bond for felony burglary. He is not eligible for release because Immigration and Customs Enforcement has placed a hold on him. Records show Gomez was previously arrested in Nashville in 2014 after police found two small children unattended in his vehicle in a big box store parking lot.
All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
Interview courtesy of local media.
📸 Image(s) used under fair use for news reporting.
