Man found competent to stand trial in Henry County

4/25/2011
BLADE STAFF

BRYAN — A Napoleon man who exchanged gunfire with Bryan police before being shot in the head was found competent to stand trial Monday in Williams County Common Pleas Court.

Rudy F. Relue, 70, is charged with three counts of felonious assault and two counts of vandalism stemming from the Dec. 30 incident. Judge Craig Roth found him competent to stand trial based on an evaluation done by the Court Diagnostic and Treatment Center in Toledo.

Williams County Prosecutor Tom Thompson said a pretrial hearing was set for June 6.

According to Bryan police, Mr. Relue allegedly fired shots through the glass front doors of the Bryan Police Department about 11:35 p.m. Another round hit the side of the building, and a fourth shot was fired into a parked patrol car.

Officers pursued Mr. Relue’s vehicle to the 200 block of Portland Street where they said Mr. Relue got out of his pickup truck with a gun. When ordered to drop the weapon, he allegedly fired at the officers and they fired back, wounding him in the head.

The incident occurred in the same location where Mr. Relue’s daughter, Andrea Andrews, 41, died in a motorcycle crash during a police chase in Bryan last May 29. She was a passenger on a motorcycle being pursued by police for a traffic violation, and police said they believed Mr. Relue blamed them for her death.

Toledo attorney Stevin Groth, who is representing Mr. Relue, did not disagree with that assessment.

“I think the reason this all happened is he did blame the police in his own mind,” Mr. Groth said. “It doesn’t mean they were to blame. It just means in his mind they were to blame.”

Mr. Relue has recovered from the gunshot wound, but not his daughter’s death, he said.

“The reality is he’s a spry 70-year-old guy who lost the love of his life, which was his daughter, which is what started all of this,” Mr. Groth said. “He’s clinically depressed. Physically, I think he’s OK. There’s just an empty sadness there.”

He said his client is getting counseling and admits “if he had gotten counseling from the get-go we wouldn’t be in this situation.”

While Mr. Relue was deemed competent to stand trial, Mr. Groth said there is some question of whether he was to some degree temporarily insane when he drove to Bryan that night with a gun.