FOND DU LAC, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) — A competency exam was ordered Wednesday for a man who for allegedly intentionally crashed into and killed a motorcyclist because the victim was white.
Daniel Navarro is charged with first-degree intentional homicide with a hate crime enhancer for the July 3 crash which killed Phillip Thiessen.
Navarro was scheduled to be in court for an arraignment, but instead the psychiatric review was ordered.
That review will determine if Navarro understands the court proceedings and can assist in his defense. It does not address his mental state at the time of the incident; that issue could be raised at a later stage of the case.
Thiessen was found dead in the road on July 3. Officers were called to the area of Winnebago Drive and Taycheedah Way in the town of Taycheedah, following reports of a head-on crash between a motorcycle and pickup truck.
The Fond du Lac County Sheriff’s Office says Navarro hit Thiessen with the truck. Thiessen was not wearing a helmet at the time of the crash.
“Navarro said that if President Donald Trump and white people are going to create the world we are living in, he has no choice and that people are going to have to die,” Sheriff Ryan Waldschmidt said at a previous news conference.
According to the criminal complaint, Navarro told police he had been a target of racism because he is Mexican.
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