After Arnold Woods, a homeless man, was found sleeping in Popejoy Hall, his mother, Mary, asked the Albuquerque community for help finding her son.
She filed a classified ad in the Daily Lobo and went on Channel 4 news with her plea for help. She hadn’t spoken with her son in two years.
She said he’s now staying with family friends. After she filed the classified ad, Mary said a friend recognized Arnold on campus and took him to his/her home.
“They feel they can work with him slowly and hopefully that he will accept their help,” Mary said. “They have taken him fishing, on a hike in the Sandias and are doing their best to put him on the right track.”
Mary still has not talked with her son. Instead, she is corresponding through e-mail with the people he is staying with to ensure her son’s safety, she said.
“I love him very much and I am anxious to see him,” she said.
The latest on-campus incident occurred March 26 when a UNMPD officer arrested a man near the Anthropology Building for suspicious behavior. According to the police report, UNMPD officer P. Klaurens recognized the man, because he had “a couple of news stories … detailing family members being concerned.”
Mary said her son was, in fact, arrested on March 26.
Police responded to a radio call from UNM security about a suspicious person riding a bicycle back and forth in front of the Anthropology building. UNMPD made repeated requests to stop and talk to the individual, but he refused each time.
When UNMPD arrived on scene, the man suspected to be Arnold Woods had moved to the bushes in front of Dane Smith Hall.
“I arrived on scene and was directed to the second level of Dane Smith Hall,” Klaurens wrote in his report. “As I climbed the ramp, I saw the bicyclist riding his bicycle on the second floor walkway.”
Officer Klaurens asked the man to stop his bike but he refused and rode directly in the path toward the officer.
“I ordered him to stop, and he made no effort to comply and continued to ride toward me,” he said in the report. “I sidestepped out of his path, again ordered him to stop and pushed him into the railed fence.”
The man then tried to climb over the fence, but officer Klaurens pinned him into the fence and placed the suspect into an arm bar.
The man told police he did not stop because he did not recognize the officers.
“He said that my jacket was covering the uniform,” officer Klaurens wrote in his report. “I was not wearing a jacket, and both my badge and sleeve patch were visible. He then told me that I smelled of alcohol and asked if I had been drinking.”
Officer Klaurens recognized the suspect from news reports detailing his homelessness and schizophrenia and asked if the man had been in contact with his family. According to the police report the man responded, “The NSA won’t let me do anything like that.”
Mary said Arnold’s life crumbled in front his eyes and resulted in the loss of his mental health.
“Before he lost his mind he was a computer consultant making $80,000 a year and he had a beautiful wife,” she said. “He got fired from his job, they repossessed the car (and) cut off all his utilities so he was living in filth, and he was physically evicted from his home.”
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Left with nothing, Arnold began a two-year homeless journey and he stopped talking to his family.
“He needs medical help. Arnold would not have suffered like this if we could recognize he had mental problems years ago,” Mary said. “He would look depressed all the time. He could put up a good front with his friends.”
