Chief Acevedo sits down for one on one interview about rock throwing suspect

We are learning more about the man who police believe is behind the majority of rock throwing cases.

59-year-old Patrick Eugene Johnson who was arrested Thursday as the prime suspect in the rock throwing on I-35 has been seen at many Austin City Council meetings. Chief Art Acevedo with APD sat down with Fox 7 for and one on one interview regarding the rock throwing suspect. "He's made a career about screaming bloody murder about everything, basically conspiracy theory type," he said.

Johnson became a person of interest after a detective noticed a trend of him calling 911. "When they started looking at the fact he called in more than one occasion and alleged that he was a victim himself," Chief Acevedo said.

There have been 94-reported cases in the last two years, 3 where people have been seriously injured.

Tina Morales was a victim in November of 2015. "Shock, literally I thought I got shot. I kept on saying I think someone shot me in the neck, someone shot me in the neck," she said.
Kenneth Johnson a former musician in Austin was severely injured after his vehicle was hit. "He has a prosthetic all the way through his head.  He had a stroke after he had the brain surgery.  He had an aneurism and they had to go in and it burst," his mother Barbara Goodwin said. Chief Acevedo said they have evidence tying Johnson to that case. "I'm convinced by the time we are done with the prosecution of this case and jurors get a hold of this man, we ain't going to see him anytime soon," he said.

He also said he's confident they will charge Johnson with multiple aggravated assault charges as well as attempted murder. "Have you seen some of the damage that this man has caused? The damage hits the head of a person, that's going 70 mph, what do you think's going to happen? We are very lucky that nobody died," Chief Acevedo said.

A major break came in the case when a UTPD officer realized he was a victim himself and had dashcam video. "We see this video, oh lord, that's that car. So it all came together very nicely," Acevedo said.

As for why, Acevedo said he is not interested in what his motive was, and as far as he's concerned he was just trying to kill people. "When you think about the fact that we are fairly confident that he would come back to the scenes to act like he's there to help or to look at the results of his handiwork, says a little bit about this person and his mindset," he said.

Johnson is being held on $250,000 cash only bail.

He's also set to be in court on June 30th for charges of Aggravated Sexual Assault of a Child.