Victim released, recovering
A Healdsburg resident is being held in county jail following a stabbing incident on Tuesday, April 18 outside the Healdsburg Community Center on Healdsburg Avenue.
According to a statement issued by Healdsburg City Manager David Mickaelian, at approximately 4 p.m., a fight occurred between two men in front of the Healdsburg Community Center. During the incident, one of the men was stabbed in the arm. Healdsburg Police responded to the scene and began searching for the suspect who fled north, away from the community center.
The victim, a 23-year-old Healdsburg resident whose identity has not been released, was transported to a hospital with non-life threatening injures, and was treated and released the same day, according to Healdsburg Police Sergeant John Haviland.
According to Mickaelian’s statement, when the incident occurred, staff initiated lockdown procedures at the Community Center, where an after-school children’s program was underway. Mickaelian stated that the incident occurred outside of the presence of children and to the best of staff’s knowledge, none of the children at the community center observed the incident or the scene.
In order to ensure parents were able to pick up their children quickly and safely, staff identified an alternate pickup location to bring together parents and their children and brought in additional bilingual staff to provide information, answer questions and assist parents picking up their children.
Normal community center operations resumed the following day, with increased security, and additional support and counseling services.
The suspect was identified as 22-year-old Luis Enrique Gonzalez from Healdsburg. He was arrested on Friday, April 21 around 5:30 p.m. in Santa Rosa with the assistance of the Santa Rosa Police Department.
“We pinged his cell phone and it pinged down in Santa Rosa,” Healdsburg Police Sergeant Hector Altamirano said. “As a courtesy, and for assistance, we told them we were looking for this guy and asked them to help us out and they did.”
Gonzalez was booked for assault with deadly weapon and remains in custody. Neither he nor the victim has provided any insight into any motivation behind the incident.
“He wouldn’t talk to us,” Altamirano said of Gonzalez. “We tried talking to him, he said something like ‘I’m not talking to you.’”
They got a similar response from the victim. “We identified (Gonzalez) through witnesses, as the victim wasn’t very forthcoming with information either,” Altamirano said. “I think they had lengthy history with each other. “
At the Healdsburg Unified School District Board of Trustees meeting on April 19, Superintendent Chris Vanden Heuvel made a statement praising the city, community center staff and law enforcement for their care of the children at the community center.
“My compliments to the city and the staff there, they kept everyone calm and did a fantastic job,” Vanden Heuvel said. “I was so impressed with their great care for our children.”
Anyone with information on the incident is asked to call the Healdsburg Police Department at 431-3377.
