For four hours, Robert Schoenmakers and his parents (90 and 93) were stuck in the house on Sunday evening because a confused man was on the roof. The man threw down roof tiles on Sunday evening and eventually fell from the roof. “It was very scary. You feel impotence at such a moment,” Robert tells Omroep Brabant.
The confused man has left a trail of destruction. He climbed over the roofs of at least eight houses on the Broekhovenseweg in Tilburg and all those houses have roof tiles on the street and in the gardens. The man was unable to continue at the home of the Schoenmakers family and that is where he caused the most damage. “My parents are especially very angry. Why this house, they want to know”, begins Robert.
“We were afraid he would come in.”
At the beginning of the evening, the neighbor suddenly saw someone sitting on the roof of Robert’s parents. “He called me and I immediately went to my parents to support them.” For four hours, Robert sits with his 93-year-old father and 90-year-old mother while the man sat on the roof.
“We had to stay inside, we weren’t allowed to go outside,” Robert continues. “It was very scary. Every time you heard claps of roof tiles being thrown down. We were afraid he would come in.”
According to eyewitnesses, the man got tired around half past ten. One of the members of the arrest team went up on the roof at that moment. “The confused man wanted to flee and jumped down. My father was sitting at the table downstairs and saw him fall through the roof of the terrace.” His fall can also be seen on a video that neighbors behind have made. “The damage is extensive. The roof is completely broken, the garden furniture is broken.”
“If he had received the right help right away, it would not have come to this.”
Earlier in the day, the man around the corner, on Groenstraat, also caused a nuisance. “He walked into the parking lot here, the police followed him,” says Frans Joseph who lives there. “The man shouted all the time: ‘No way, no way, no way!’ And then he started crawling under the cars.”
Not much later, four police cars and an ambulance are at Frans’ doorstep. “A number of officers laid the man on the ground. He received an injection and was taken away by ambulance.” He is therefore very surprised when he sees the man sitting on the roof a few hours later. “Somewhere something goes wrong in healthcare. If he had received the right help right away, it would not have come to this.”
Police said on Sunday evening that the man was probably in a psychosis. Robert Schoenmakers can confirm that. “I went to look in the attic and looked him straight in the eye. He was completely lost, he clearly needed help.”
“I hope that they will now guide him well so that something like this can never happen again,” concludes Frans. And Robert’s parents? “They can’t be beaten out of the field. The damage is assessed, everything is repaired and then we happily go on with our lives.”
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