Sometimes God allegedly tells people to run for public office, and sometimes He'll allegedly tell a Mesa man that his neighbors are "terrorists" trying to murder him with chemical weapons, so it's probably best to kill them first.
For some reason, the cops weren't buying the terrorist-neighbor story allegedly proposed yesterday by 42-year-old Richard Hess.
According to court documents obtained by New Times, police responded to a call on the 3400 block of University Drive in Mesa yesterday evening, where an officer found Hess -- who had allegedly threatened his neighbors with a knife.
Hess first told police that he was going to kill "them," adding that "God told me to do it," according to the documents.
Turns out, "them" was a reference to Hess' neighbors, who "have been trying to poison and kill him with such things as Serin (sic) gas," the documents state.
(Sarin, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is a "chemical warfare agent classified as a nerve agent.")
"[Hess] stated that because of this, God told him his neighbors are terrorists and must be dealt with," the documents state.
Hess then went on to explain that he took a knife and went to his neighbors' place, breaking their window with the knife -- as pieces of glass hit the woman living there -- and intending to climb in and kill the man who lived there, according to the docs.
"He then said he chickened out and yelled at the neighbors to come outside so he could kill them outside with the knife," the documents state.
As you can imagine -- if your name isn't Richard Hess -- his neighbor's didn't go outside to volunteer themselves as murder victims.
The documents say Hess' neighbors were very shaken up and afraid for their lives.
Hess was booked into jail on two counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, two counts of threatening or intimidating, and one count of criminal damage.
