"He started becoming absolutely unpredictable" after the beating, she said.
She said Petrov has not received the mental health treatment he needs.
The mother also said "my son was deliberately criminalized" unfairly by various law enforcement agencies leaking what she believes to be false reports of alleged offenses. She said she believes those reports have further traumatized her son.
"They took his soul," she said.
Petrov was beaten by two deputies with more than 40 baton blows on a street in the Mission District at the end of a car chase that began in unincorporated San Leandro on Nov. 12. A video of the beating has widely circulated online.
Petrov's mother and lawyers representing him in a complaint against Alameda County say he suffered several head injuries and permanent damage to his hands, so that he can no longer work as an auto mechanic.
FBI agents arrested Petrov and an unidentified woman Friday at a house in the Visitacion Valley neighborhood of San Francisco. Petrov was previously arrested March 8 in the same neighborhood under suspicion of conspiracy and drug-related charges, according to the San Francisco Police Department, who said more details would have to come from the FBI. An FBI spokesman directed any inquiries on the arrest back to the SFPD.
On Saturday, 23-year-old Dana Rinta, a former girlfriend of Petrov's who had been missing for more than two weeks, walked into a police station in the city and said she and her 1-year-old daughter were safe.
Olga Petrova said she did not know anything about the house where Petrov was arrested.
Since the trauma of the beating, she said, Petrov's "habit was to live in multiple places. He had multiple ladies he was calling his girlfriend," she said.
This post contains reporting from Bay City News.
