A Mahanoy City man who fought with two local emergency medical technicians and a police officer was found guilty of resisting arrest and simple assault of one of the EMTs, in a verdict reached by a Schuylkill County jury Monday.

William J. Mooney, 48, had been charged with three counts of aggravated assault, three counts of simple assault and one count of resisting arrest in connection with a series of events Oct. 9, 2018. President Judge William E. Baldwin set his sentencing for June 28.

And Mooney won’t be free until then. He’ll be incarcerated at Schuylkill County Prison as he violated his bail conditions and was late to his trial (see sidebar). The events in 2018 began at 8:30 a.m. when Mahanoy City Patrolman Matthew Williams responded to a report of a person inside an unoccupied building at 321/323 West Centre St. Williams went into the building, encountering Mooney who had gone out a third-floor attic window in one building, and entered the adjoining building.

Deeming the chase unsafe, Mooney discontinued the pursuit but soon encountered Mooney on the porch of a rectory on Catawissa Street.

Mooney assumed a “fighting stance” and refused the officer’s commands to halt. Williams deployed his Taser, but Mooney removed the Taser staples and backhanded Williams across the face as he fled the porch.

About an hour later, Williams responded to the 300 block of West Railroad Street for a report of a man lying in the street. It was Mooney, who complained of leg pain and asked to be taken to a hospital.

Mahanoy City Ambulance responded, and EMTs Eugene Knelly and Joseph VanBlargan loaded Mooney into the ambulance, fastened by seatbelt to a gurney. With Knelly driving and VanBlargan in the back with Mooney, they departed for the hospital with Williams following in his patrol car.

The ambulance was shaking

Local resident Christopher Zubris, who is a police officer in Hazleton but had worked in Mahanoy City, was having a coffee on his porch when he saw the ambulance come to an abrupt stop. He saw the driver exit and enter the back of the ambulance.

“The ambulance started moving and shaking,” Zubris said. “I saw the EMTs and the defendant land on the street.”

Williams exited the patrol vehicle and attempted to grab Mooney, but the physical struggle continued, Zubris said.

“I ran across the street and held Mooney’s head down on the street — he was screaming, yelling, incoherently,” Zubris said. “I felt the duty to assist an officer; it began to get out of hand as Mr. Mooney got more aggressive.”

Williams handcuffed Mooney but as Knelly attempted to put him back into the ambulance, Mooney attempted to headbutt Knelly.

During the scuffle, VanBlargan was kicked in the leg. Knelly was cut on an arm and leg and had a severely bruised elbow sustained when Mooney knocked him down in the street.

Knelly testified that due to his injuries, he missed two days of work. In his closing argument, defense attorney Kent Watkins implied that the use of the Taser made Mooney “angry or upset.”

He pointed out that although Williams bodycam had footage of the Taser incident, there was no bodycam video of the fracas outside the ambulance.

Prosecutor McCall Young said that the Taser, along with Mooney’s backhand to Williams’s face, changed the situation.

“He (Williams) was trying to make a lawful arrest, but he (Mooney) was immediately violent and then ran away,” Young said. “The EMTs were just doing their job, and he started getting violent with them.”

“He was trying to get away at any cost – he was going to do anything,” she added. “It wasn’t mindless flailing, he wanted to hurt them, he wanted to break free and he wanted to go.”

After the verdict, McCall said she was disappointed in not getting the aggravated assault convictions.

“We would have liked to get the aggravated assault,” she said. “But with the guilty verdicts on assault and resisting arrest, we’re satisfied.”