Suspect in 16th Street Mall attack: “I’m not even living in reality without my medication”

The man accused of hitting people with a PVC pipe on 16th Street Mall said that he was suffering a mental-health crisis at the time of the attack, KDVR reports.

The daylight attack made huge news earlier this summer, with one video viewed millions of times. A couple days earlier, Mayor Michael Hancock had said that the city was suffering a “scourge of hoodlums” who had come to Denver for legal marijuana.

Jojola’s interview gives some detail about the suspect’s motivations. Clarence Seeley, of Indiana, said that he has been diagnosed with “explosive temper disorder, psychotic, schizophrenic.”

His medication was stolen before the assault, he told KDVR, claiming that the incident started because he saw someone with a knife threatening him. The video appears to show him running from person to person while swinging the pipe. No one was seriously injured.

Seeley, 32, told Jojola that he came to Denver because marijuana eases his mental-health symptoms, allowing him to “walk down the street” without feeling paranoid. He faces a felony count of assault to cause injury with a deadly weapon, according to court records.

Head over to KDVR for the full video and more quotes from the interview.