An Española man turned himself in to police after he allegedly stabbed a co-worker on Oct. 30 at Denny’s on North Riverside Drive.
Española City Police Detective Dominic Ellis charged Tobias Romero, 28, with one count of aggravated battery with a deadly weapon.
The reason for the alleged stabbing and the circumstances are unclear, as none of the witnesses reported seeing or hearing a conflict and Romero exercised his right to remain silent. The victim was flown to Albuquerque because of the severity of his wounds.
A head cook told Ellis she arrived for her shift at 3 p.m. and was greeted by Romero and the victim, a dishwasher who started working there less than a month prior.
“She described the dinner rush as normal, with no apparent conflicts,” Ellis wrote. “After stepping out of the kitchen briefly to get coffee, she observed (victim) emerge from the kitchen into the dining room holding his stomach and stating, ‘the dishwasher stabbed me.’”
At the same time, she saw Romero running toward the rear exit, he wrote.
She escorted the wounded man to the women’s bathroom as she saw he was bleeding heavily.
She removed her belt and top layer of clothing and applied pressure to the wound, before getting up to get a waitress to help get the man into a car to be transported to the hospital, Ellis wrote.
She then directed other employees to clean the visible blood “due to ongoing restaurant operations,” he wrote.
She noted that Romero is known to carry a pocket knife while at work, Ellis wrote.
While Ellis was at the scene, Romero went to the Española detention center to turn himself in, where he was arrested by officers, he wrote.
At Denny’s, Ellis noted a blood trail from the kitchen to the dining room, to the women’s restroom and he documented the remaining blood stains.
At the hospital, a woman was at the emergency entrance with her car. Ellis noted blood on the door handle, window and roof, but none inside the car. She told Ellis she started working at 5 p.m. and saw the dishwasher leave the kitchen holding his abdomen. She didn’t realize what was going on until the head cook started rushing in a panic, Ellis wrote.
“She described a stab wound to (victim’s) abdomen and stated she retrieved a stack of coffee filters to apply pressure,” Ellis wrote.
At the hospital, staff told Ellis that the man had a “deep stab wound to the left abdomen with initial hemodynamic instability,” so they intubated him and prepared to transfer him to The University of New Mexico Hospital in Albuquerque, the state’s trauma hospital.
Prosecutors initially asked for, and were granted, a 24-hour continuance in the case to determine if they will, or won’t, seek to have Romero held without bail pending trial.
Past cases
In one past case, dismissed by prosecutors as part of a global plea deal, Romero was initially charged with aggravated battery and breaking and entering for being inside a vacant Española house and then attacking an employee of the home’s owner. That employee never saw Romero actually in the house or leave the house, but confronted him, yelled at him and told him to “wait for the cops.”
In that case, Romero was described as living in a nearby tent.