Florida: David Rivera hangs his mom's dog, threatens suicide in standoff up a tree

FLORIDA --A DeBary man forced authorities into an eight-hour standoff after deputies say he hanged his mother's Chihuahua from a large oak tree and then threatened to hang himself.

Volusia County sheriff's deputies on Thursday eventually talked David Rivera down from the branches where he had climbed about 30 feet into the foliage, according to sheriff's spokesman Andrew Gant.

Events began after Rivera, 24, was arguing with his mother at her home at 90 Dirksen Drive over his unemployment, according to the sheriff's report.

That's when he dragged a 5-year-old Chihuahua out to the tree in his mother's backyard and dropped it from a limb with a metal chain around its neck, the report states.

David's mother, Belica Rivera, said her son "loves animals" and had been caring for the dog for about three weeks since Benji was given to the family.

When the mother realized what happened to the dog, "I said, 'Baby, you don't do that,' " Belica Rivera said in a phone interview Friday afternoon with The News-Journal, adding that "he bit David in the leg last week."

But then events took another turn and David, a former Deltona High School student, climbed 30 feet into the oak tree, tied a metal cable around his neck, swung the other end around a limb and threatened to jump, deputies said.

The 49-year-old mother of five sons immediately called 9-1-1.

"I have an emergency in my house. My son is crazy. He killed one of the dogs," cried Belica Rivera in the call as she tried to get emergency services to come out to her home, just across the street from Gemini Springs Dog Park.

Rivera said she pleaded with her son to come down and eventually there were at least 40 law enforcement officers in her yard, including the Sheriff's Office Hostage Negotiation Team.

"The first deputy on scene tried to talk Rivera into coming down safely, but Rivera refused," Gant said. "Rivera insisted deputies contact the mother of his child, who lives out of state, and have her bring his son to him before he spoke with anyone else."

Deputies said Rivera climbed down about 7 p.m. and surrendered. He was charged with felony animal cruelty.

Rivera was being held Friday at the Volusia County Branch Jail on $2,000 bail, and he is expected to undergo a mental health evaluation, according to the sheriff's report.

Belica Rivera said she was urging her son to make money to help support two children he fathered — a son who lives with his mom in Indiana and a daughter who lives with her mother in Deltona. She added her son was prescribed medication for depression a while back but doesn't take it because he told her it makes him feel groggy and he ends up sleeping all day.

"He needs his medication," Belica Rivera said.

She said he was a straight-A student when he attended Deltona High School, but things started to fall apart when he began using drugs and getting into trouble with the law.

David Rivera has been arrested and booked into the county jail at least nine times since 2010, according to the jail's website.

"I treat him good. I give him a good life," Rivera's mother said, adding that she thinks he needs more time being overseen by health professionals and is holding off providing bail money until she knows he can be held at a hospital.

(Daytona Beach news - April 15, 2016)