One year after a standoff, a military veteran gets the treatment he needs.

One year after engaging in a scary standoff with local police, military veteran Vahe Ohanian says he’s getting the help he needs for the mental health and substance abuse issues that led to the incident, avoiding jail time in the process.

On the morning of May 26, 2022, Monterey County Sheriff’s Office deputies arrived at Ohanian’s apartment complex on San Pablo Avenue in Seaside to serve an eviction notice. What followed was an hours-long standoff after Ohanian fired a rifle-style BB gun at officers, twice hitting a patrol vehicle windshield. He eventually surrendered and was charged with three counts of felony assault on an officer with a deadly weapon other than a firearm, plus felony and misdemeanor charges for resisting an officer.

Ohanian, 58, says the incident was the culmination of a years-long battle with untreated bipolar disorder, as well as post-traumatic stress disorder tied to his service in the U.S. Marine Corps in the 1980s. Once an attorney working in the Los Angeles area, in recent years he found himself homeless and roaming the country in his car, before settling in Monterey County with the help of the HUD-VASH veterans’ housing program.

Yet Ohanian faced eviction after failing to get recertified for the HUD-VASH program and falling behind on his rent, he says. Coupled with a 2021 public intoxication charge that resulted in his vehicle being confiscated, Ohanian says his mental health issues “snowballed.” He was not on psychiatric medication at the time of the police altercation, instead self-medicating with heavy cannabis use.

“At that point, I was thinking about suicide by cop,” Ohanian says. “I was in a state of drug-induced psychosis. Whatever I said or planned or did wasn’t reasonable or rational…I’m ashamed, and I really regret what happened.”

Ohanian subsequently spent more than four months in Monterey County Jail, and faced considerably more time in prison. (Each felony assault charge was punishable by up to five years in state prison.) But given his circumstances, county prosecutors saw fit to pursue the matter through Veterans’ Treatment Court—a collaborative department of the court system that sees prosecutors and defense attorneys work together to address the issues leading veterans into legal trouble.

“It was pretty clear from the reports that there were significant mental health issues [involved in Ohanian’s case],” says Monterey County Assistant District Attorney Greg Peterson, a U.S. Army veteran who supervises Veterans’ Treatment Court matters for the DA’s office. “We take all the factors into account as far as crime and punishment, and the options we have available to prevent this from ever happening again.”

After Ohanian underwent assessment by the county Behavioral Health Department, “we determined that underlying mental health issues were the cause of the incident, and the best bet was to get him the help that he needed,” Peterson says. 

In September, Ohanian pleaded no contest to one felony assault charge and the misdemeanor resisting arrest charge, and was sentenced to three years of probation. By December, he had entered an in-patient treatment program at the VA Medical Center in Menlo Park.

Ohanian says the program features a regimented schedule of counseling and treatment in a hospital setting. He’s now taking psychiatric medication, and indications are that he’s fully participating in the program and progressing well. While the in-patient program is designed to last six months, Ohanian says he’ll likely stay longer—but he’s doing well enough that he could be released from Veterans’ Treatment Court, and his probation, after 18 months.

“I’m very grateful,” Ohanian says. “I’m still alive, I’m no longer in psychosis—I’m taking my meds and just trying to get over this ordeal. I’m not a criminal at heart.”

Editor's note: This is a longer version of the story that appeared in print in the June 1-7 edition of the Weekly.