Police charge Brackenridge man with breaking down door, threatening housemates with ax
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Tarentum police arrested a man after his housemates told them he used an ax to break through a door because he was angry they weren’t chipping in enough to pay the bills.
David Hood Monroe, 64, of the 1100 block of Roup Avenue in Brackenridge, was charged with a felony count of aggravated assault, along with counts of making terroristic threats and simple assault. He was being detained in Allegheny County Jail after a judge denied bond because Monroe is considered a threat to the community, according to court records.
A preliminary hearing before District Judge Carolyn Bengel is scheduled for Wednesday.
Police wrote in a criminal complaint charging Monroe that officers responding to a call at a home on Roup Avenue shortly before 11 p.m. Aug. 21 they found Monroe unarmed but detained him while they investigated.
A woman living in the home told police Monroe and the other man living there began arguing during dinner because Monroe thought she and the other man were not paying their fair share of the expenses, according to the complaint.
The woman told police she went upstairs to her bedroom while the men were arguing. She could hear them wrestling in the kitchen before the other man locked himself in the basement to get away from Monroe, the complaint said.
The woman told police Monroe went outside to get an ax and was walking around the property while banging it on the ground saying, “This is my walking cane,” according to the complaint.
The woman told police Monroe returned to the house and used the ax to knock her bedroom door off its hinges, police said.
She told police Monroe then jumped onto the bed and held the ax above her while yelling: “… I will kill you, and, when the police get here, I will kill them, too,” the complaint said.
Police said the bedroom door was off its hinges and destroyed when they arrived.
When officers tried to take Monroe into custody, he began kicking and was taken to Allegheny Valley Hospital in Harrison for a mental evaluation, the complaint said.
Police said Monroe spit in an officer’s face when he was being taken out of the vehicle at the hospital.